TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Ric Gillespie on October 12, 2019, 12:19:24 PM
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In the early 1980s I worked with a brilliant aviation accident investigator/expert witness by the name of Hugh Youngblood. At that time he lived in Salt Lake City. Hugh would be just the guy to answer some structural failure questions about 2-2-V-1.
He is about my age (71) and may now be retired. I can't find him online. Can anyone help?
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Could this be him?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugh-youngblood-90689933/
This Hugh is 76 and lives in Providence, UT
Karen Hoy #2610CE
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That's him. The Amazing Karen strikes again! Many thanks.
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Ric - I live about ten minutes away! How I assist? Call me if it would be helpful.
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Ric - I live about ten minutes away! How I assist? Call me if it would be helpful.
Thanks Friend. Hugh has replied to my query and I've sent him an email catching him up in what I've been up to for the past 40 years or so and outlining what we'd like him to do. Let's see what he says.
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The patch position near the bulkhead gives rise to the possibility that the Electra broke apart here, possibly in three sections: Nose/wings, fuselage, and tail boom - typical in crashes and possibly typical of the violence water and wind can wreak. With an open fuselage section, wind and water could have worked the patch back and forth until it failed, blew off, and washed up. I recall from this website the anecdotal evidence from a native who lived on the island that she "cooked fish on a piece of metal with a lot of holes in it." Perhaps Mr. Youngblood will shed light.
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As I recall there has been a lot of discussion in the past about the islanders as a source of damage to any wreckage they happened to find. To me, 2-2-V-1 is evidence they did not find everything and there might be more untouched items to find. If, as appears likely, it is the Miami patch, it is nearly complete, missing only what was torn off in removing it from the airplane. The damage to it is consistent with what happened while it was in place (buckling visible in photos) or in its apparently forceful removal, whether by natural forces or human activity. There has been some speculation that Amelia and Fred removed it, either to open an access (to get in in or out) or for additional ventilation in the hot sun after landing. I am inclined to think it was removed by natural forces as the plane broke up, and that the remaining post-removal damage is from wind and water moving it around and bending it further. It appears to have been pushed outward by a blunt impact from inside the aircraft. If people did it, they apparently did not have suitable cutting tools and simply bashed on it from inside, maybe by kicking. There seems to be no post-removal damage such as would be inflicted by islanders repurposing it. There is an anecdote by an island woman of having cooked fish on a sheet of aluminum with many holes, which sounds like this, but I think it isn't. Such use might show fire damage on one side and fish residue on the other, or signs of cleaning; as I recall 2-2-V-1 doesn't show either. What was once thought to be heat hardening at one end of it is now believed to be work hardening, perhaps from it being flexed back and forth until it broke off.
I am writing this from memory and attempting to find all the references -- by doing a search on "2-2-V-1," which are from many different threads over several years (I have been reading my way through all the old Forum posts preceding my membership in TIGHAR, and I am not sure now in which one I read what. Please forgive any misstatements of fact.
LTM,
Don
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To correct my October 14 post -- Ric's article in the current Tighar Tracks details the evidence that humans removed 2-2-V-1 from the aircraft, including evidence of tool use. My speculation that it was removed by natural forces (wind and water) is disproved by the evidence. Ric's summary of what is known about this artifact says it much better than I did. My main thought had been to respond to the question of whether the islanders had previously found 2-2-V-1, which its condition argues against.
LTM,
Don