MARCH 18, 1937
SPOILER ALERT: The little-known facts reported here reveal a rather different picture of Amelia Earhart than is customary. They are presented not to debunk or disparage her legacy but purely in the interest of historical accuracy.
The photo shows the Electra in the hangar at Wheeler Army Airfield, Honolulu on the afternoon of March 18, 1937. Army mechanics are disassembling the propeller hubs.
At 5:40 am Honolulu time Amelia Earhart and company sighted Diamond Head and, soon after, touched down at Wheeler Army Airfield in Honolulu. They had set a new record of fifteen hours and forty-seven minutes from Oakland. The only problem Amelia mentioned publicly was a generator that failed because “Harry held the [morse code sending] key down so long it got tired.” A U.S. Army investigation found that the failure was due to a blown fuse caused by an improperly set current control. But there was more to story. For the last half of the flight the right-hand propeller had been stuck at a fixed angle of pitch – not a problem in sustained cruise flight but if a “go around” had been necessary on the landing approach the consequences could have been fatal.
After a congratulatory photo session, Earhart, Mantz, Manning and Noonan left the airplane in the Army’s care and, according to the later Army report, departed the airfield without leaving any instructions “whatsoever as to what was to be done to the plane in the way of service or check-over.” The previously announced plan was for Earhart, Manning and Noonan to take off from Wheeler on the flight to Howland Island that night at 10:00 pm, so the Air Corps engineering officer and the local Pratt & Whitney engine representative “took it upon themselves to do what is usually done to put an airplane in suitable condition for the continuance of such a flight.” In servicing the propellers they found that both hubs took a surprising amount of grease.
Mantz returned to the airfield that afternoon and, upon running up the engines, found that the right-hand prop was still stuck in fixed pitch. The Electra was rolled into the hangar and both propeller hubs were disassembled. The Army mechanics discovered that the blades on the right-hand prop were “badly galled and frozen in place.” The left-hand prop was almost as bad. The officer in charge judged the failures to be “due to improper lubricant.” It was the opinion of some of the technicians that “the hubs were nearly dry when the plane left the mainland.”
The engineering officer ordered that the hubs be taken across town to the Air Corps Hawaiian Air Depot at Luke Field, Pearl Harbor for overhaul. At 7:00 pm that evening Mantz informed the Army that Earhart might want to depart as early as 8:00 or 9:00 am the next morning. The Air Corps mechanics worked into the night and at 2:00 am the repaired propeller hubs arrived back at Wheeler to be installed on the Electra. “When the installation had been completed and the cowlings had been safetied and checked, the crew retired for a much needed three hours of sleep.
Earhart announced that her departure for Howland Island had been delayed “on account of weather.” The navy meterological officer later reported that he had forecast “favorable flying conditions over the entire route, except for cloudiness and showers near Pearl Harbor. It is understood that her delay was occasioned by other reasons.”