17:47 GMT Transmission

[Gary LaPook]

One good point from all the fuel talk drift here - the Electra did have a fairly simple fuel system.  I don't see evidence in what we know of the system being mishandled and causing an early loss of the flight.  I think that is unlikely to have happened.

LTM -

So Harry, if you're down to a half hours fuel wouldn't you be trying to get Itasca, idly sitting at anchor waiting for you, to come to you?  Even though she had poor radio contact she still transmitted as though people could hear her.  If she thought she was going to ditch Gary then why not attempt to get Itasca to come to her.  At least send a message on all radio channels she had saying "ditching now...position is xx yy".

Yep, and why didn't she say she was abandoning searching for Howland and that she would proceed to the south east to look for the Phoenix Islands?

gl

[Gary LaPook]

IRV
My comment about the "launch" was just a comment on Thompson's actions in steaming off to the NW.
I personally don't believe the "pnly half hour fuel "  entry.  I believe she had 5, perhaps more hours left after the 0855 transmission

So don't believe anything you want but those words were logged at the time and Thompson included those words in a message he sent out only one and a half hours after her last transmission. The transcript also notes that they were verified by others in the radio shack.

gl

[Irvine John Donald]

Good point Gary. There are a number of forum threads that discuss this. Let's go over to those and discuss this. Cut down on thread drift.

[Gary LaPook]

So Harry, if you're down to a half hours fuel wouldn't you be trying to get Itasca, idly sitting at anchor waiting for you, to come to you?  Even though she had poor radio contact she still transmitted as though people could hear her.  If she thought she was going to ditch Gary then why not attempt to get Itasca to come to her.  At least send a message on all radio channels she had saying "ditching now...position is xx yy".

Yep, and why didn't she say she was abandoning searching for Howland and that she would proceed to the south east to look for the Phoenix Islands?

gl

Good point Gary. There are a number of forum threads that discuss this. Let's go over to those and discuss this. Cut down on thread drift.

And the absence of either of these two possible radio messages do not carry equal weight. If the engines have stopped because she was out of fuel, or she had another emergency, then she would be busy actually ditching the plane and would not have much time to adjust her radio controls (if necessary) and send out a ditching message. There is an old flight instructor adage, "don't drop the airplane in order to pick up the microphone." To the contrary, if she decided to fly to the Phoenix islands then she had all the leisure in the world to sent that message many times over.

gl

[Harry Howe, Jr.]

Gary
"That" message.
Perhaps the radio wasn't working after she tried to CHANGE frequencies from 3105 to 6210 as she said  she was gonna do?

[Irvine John Donald]

Gary.  Try this thread in the forum

http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,333.msg3198.html#msg3198

Good stuff there on the lack of radio messages.

You're post about ditching....  You now think it suddenly happened?  She wasn't watching her fuel gauges, as inaccurate as they were?  You suggest in other posts that they had time to search.  While searching she could be transmitting, if the radio is working.  No radio messages then either.  But now it's sudden. When do you think this surprise happened?

Can you reply to my post about FN being an adaptable navigator?   You still insist on crashed and sank. Ok but disproving TIGHAR's hypothesis doesn't prove yours.

[Gary LaPook]

Gary was an attorney in the John Denver case? Is that correct Gary? ----
HUM

Yes and I provided a lot of detail about it on this thread.

gl

[Tom Swearengen]

last of my thread drifts---
Gary---good for for defending ACS.

[Heath Smith]

Did AE wear reading glasses? I caught a clip the other day, she was flying, and she appeared to put on a pair of reading glasses. They sure did not appear to be sun glasses.

Did she have an issue with her near vision? That might have ruled out the use of sun glasses on her approach that morning.

[John Ousterhout]

(cross-posted at the "parachute" thread, sorry for thread drift):
AE tried to use her DF on approach to Howland, according to the radio log.  She said she could not get a minimum, meaning she could not determine what direction the signal was coming from.  This also tells us the DF loop and receiver worked well enough to receive, if not capable of telling direction on 7500, the frequency she was listening to from Itasca at that moment.  The unsuccessful Lae test was on 6540, which was also too high.  She obviously didn't understand the loop's frequency limitation.
I think it is important to keep in mind that she could only receive on one frequency at a time, and that it took some time to change frequencies.  When she reports that she hears Itasca, she's transmitting on 3105, and listening on 7500.
Had she switched her transmitter to 500, Itasca might have been able to get a DF bearing.  She could transmit on 500, 3105 and 6210.