"You suggest a sixth possibility: “Maybe the airplane was not in that spot at the time Betty heard what she heard.” This is not discussed in Bob’s paper. Where was the plane when Betty heard what she heard, when did the plane move there, and what caused it to move? "
You make good points, Ben...but even if Ric himself hasn't addressed it, the rest of us have been discussing this very question for the last couple of days. There's a pretty plausible scenario for the plane to have been pulled out towards the reef by surf action, and as I and others have pointed out, it fits what we know of the transmission time, tide time, and sequence of events.
I just want to go back over the question of what happened after Betty's Notebook. I still think the panicked atmosphere in the cabin, and the sudden drop-off in messages after that point, strongly suggest that the plane went over the edge soon after that (or at the very least, that they thought it would, and that subsequent messages from the plane, if they did occur, must have been difficult to achieve for some reason, such as inaccessibility of the plane).
I'd like to take a quick look at the post-Betty's Notebook credible messages:
July 6 0300 local: Mrs. Ernest Crabb in Toronto hears what she thinks are AE/FN for the third time.
July 7 0025 local: Itasca hears two long dashes with faint voice.
July 7 0120 local: Itasca hears more or less the same.
July 7 0130 local: Thelma Lovelace in New Brunswick, Canada hears the following: "“Can you read me? Can you read me? This is Amelia Earhart. This is Amelia Earhart. Please come in.” Earhart then give her latitude and longitude, which Thelma wrote in a book, and continued: “we have taken in water, my navigator is badly hurt; (repeat) we are in need of medical care and must have help; we can’t hold on much longer.” This may be the same transmission as the Itasca one(s) above.
July 7 2018 local (July
: Itasca hears "weak Radiotelephone signals. Talk of Earhart."
Looking over TIGHAR's rationale for rating these credible, as usual, the logic tracks to me. I am skeptical of Mrs. Crabb though -- she overheard conversations on three separate days. I'd just like to point out that the only other cases of people hearing AE and FN more than once (other than folks in the South Pacific) were hoaxers.
Now let's go to the "time and tide" chart in the new TRACKS. The July 6 transmission occurs at near high tide. All three July 7 transmissions occur just after low tide, at the very beginning of the rise, basically the same conditions as Betty's Notebook.
So this, to me is very suggestive...first, I think there's a strong suggestion we can blow out the July 6 message entirely...for reasons stated above, plus it being the only message received that day, and IF the plane moved toward the reef, the water would have likely been too high at that point to send. Or, an alternate scenario is that AE and FN had to undertake some kind of recovery effort for the plane, and after accomplishing that were only able to get one message out before the water got too high.
The July 7 messages, I have to agree, are not as easy to dismiss, and where they occur relative to the tide coming in is very suggestive. The content of the one decipherable message even more so: she talks of taking on water and Fred being seriously hurt. Tracks both the content of the immediately previous message in Betty's Notebook AND the theory that the plane has been moved from its previously shallow resting place and is being dragged out to sea. It all fits. Interestingly for the first time a lat/long is given...is it possible they were able to determine this on July 6? Seems unlikely with Fred out to lunch. But it's interesting that the only message with a lat/long is about the last one.
The last message I'm on the fence about. "Talk of Earhart" could conceivably refer to talk in the radio room...it doesn't explicitly say Earhart was mentioned in the message. But who else would be radiophoning in the South Pacific? Probably no one. I don't really know what to make of this message (I don't have a clear enough grasp of it in relation to the prior ones), so I'm going to set is aside for a second.
So what more can be theorized from this? Granted, this is speculation, but I think we can squeeze a few more drops out of this data:
1. No, or virtually no, messages on July 6 suggests that something happened that day. Most likely possibility is that after the tide receded on July 5, AE and FN were able to get to the plane and move it back, but it would appear not very far. If the Crabb message is authentic, it suggests that this was achieved at around 1300 local, and that given the high tide that day, they were able to move the plane fairly close to its original spot. If the Crabb message was NOT authentic, then they may have only been able to bring the plane back as far as the BN location per the broadcasts the next day.
2. July 7....timing of messages relative to tide, along with the content of one of them, suggest the plane is back in deep water again.
3. There may have been another attempt to move the plane back resulting in the final message, but I confess I have no idea where that particular data point fits into the puzzle.
4. Looking at the timing of the radio messages, provisionally accepting the credible messages as being (mostly) from Earhart, a timeline could be constructed that theorizes as to their actual activities on the first several days. Periods of long radio silence for example suggest sleep time....and from there other things could be hypothesized. Speculation, yes...but grounded in good probability, and as someone else suggested, it may illuminate a path for further research.