Landing near the Norwich

[Matt Revington]

George, My take is that it is generally believed that the Colorado Search planes circled the entire island. While Lambrecht never explicitly said in his report (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html) that he did circle around the island he uses the phrase "repeated circling and zooming" around the signs of recent habitation and gives a reasonable description of Gardner including the Norwich City that suggests they flew around at least once.

[Greg Daspit]

My take includes a little from what both George and Matt said.
I think the "repeated zooming and circling" phrase referred to one spot on the island. A specific location where there were "signs of recent habitation".  The suspected Camp Zero after it was abandoned. Just based on I don't think it would be described as "zooming" if you went around the whole island.
A separate big search circle around the island and one around the lagoon makes sense to me if they had time. Lambrecht noted the lagoon as a possible landing area when he noted "Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her plane in this lagoon and swam or waded ashore"
As far as moving to where  she saw planes, or if AE even heard or saw these planes, she may have gone to the shore already searched and was blocked from view by trees when they searched the other shore.
The shape of the island is like searching two. An inner island and an outer island
Worst case for trying to be seen could be moving back and forth between the shores, always chasing where they were

[Tim Mellon]

A specific location where there were "signs of recent habitation".  The suspected Camp Zero after it was abandoned.

If the search planes had "zoomed and circled" around Camp Zero their circles would have included the Norwich City and the presumed parking stand for the Electra (unless maybe they had crop-dusting experience).

Greg, I think you logic lends even more credence to the likelihood that the Electra was no longer there.

[richie conroy]

 Lambrecht noted the lagoon as a possible landing area when he noted "Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her plane in this lagoon and swam or waded ashore"

If you were circling an island/atoll as a searcher under that impression would you even give a second thought to searching the outer reef edge ?

Would pilots like Lambrecht in this kind of scenirio, Be told in training to ditch into lagoon or the outer reef ?

Just wondering if that's how they were taught in training and expects Amelia would do the same.

Thanks Richie