Earhart's Electra found in Papua New Guinea?

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

"Claims Amelia Earhart's Plane Found."

If so, we'll have to revise our thinking.   ;D

[Ashley Such]

Interesting! But, how can that be? Well, it'll be interesting to see what the outcome is of this wreckage.

[Chris Johnson]

Near the bottom of the article it talks about New Zealand Coast Watchers and 2 bodies on Niku, both sent back to Fiji.

Dosn't scan with the available evidence for the Niku Hypothysis (sp)

Are there records of Electras in the South Pacific and Loss dates and locations?  Could just be another plane wreck.  Could also be anything without some photo evidence.

If........it was then quite a few people would have to change there ideas but i'm not holding my breath on this one.

In the UK they claim August as a quite month for news.

And (added after thinking about it) the Itasca had radio messages from AE that put the plane there or there abouts in the vacinity of Howland.  Therefore to even a navigational newbie like me this means that they must have got past PNG and associated islands.

[Monty Fowler]

Before I get even remotely excited about this - let's all remember that there was a war fought here, there were a lot of twin-engine planes that resembled Electras, including the Japanese Tachikawa Ki-54, the Beech C-45 Expeditor, and any number of others I can think of off the top of my head, lost in that theater of operations. 

Plus, trying to positively ID a coral-encrusted wreck in 120 feet of water isn't as easy as it sounds. Sure, you and I can look at photos and say, "Yep, that's an Electra." But without reliable on-site measurements, or aircraft-specific, diagnostic artifacts, what you get from photos is usually no better than a WAG.

[Ric Gillespie]

It took our Earhart Project Advisory Council (EPAC) researcher Art Rypinski about six hours to find a likely candidate for the Lockheed reportedly found in the Solomons.  On February 2, 1944 a Lockheed PV-1 "Ventura" was lost in Buka Passage off Bougainville.  See the list of Ventura losses on TIGHAR member Craig Fuller's AAIR website.  The Ventura was a military version of the Lockheed Model 18, the third in a series of follow-on designs to the original Model 10 Electra.  All had the same basic twin-engine, twin-tail layout. The Model 12 "Electra Junior" was a smaller six-passenger business aircraft (used as a stand-in for AE's Model 10 in the recent chick-flick).  The Model 14 "Super Electra" was much larger and chunkier, immortalized as the RAF "Hudson" bomber. The Model 18 "Lodestar" was sleeker, flush-riveted, and very fast.  The USAAF had a transport version called the C-60. The U.S. Navy versions were the "Ventura" and "Harpoon."

Earhart is known to have been within about 200 miles of Howland with less than five hours of fuel remaining. To return 2,000 miles to crash in the Solomons would require a speed of 400 mph - something of an improvement over the airplane's usual cruising speed of 150 mph.  I don't think so.

[Ashley Such]

Earhart is known to have been within about 200 miles of Howland with less than five hours of fuel remaining. To return 2,000 miles to crash in the Solomons would require a speed of 400 mph - something of an improvement over the airplane's usual cruising speed of 150 mph.  I don't think so.

My thoughts exactly, Ric.

[Zach Reed]

Well that's impressive! Solving a riddle in six hours. Amazing to think that those guys have been down there for 66 years.



All the same, is there anything we can learn from a similar plane model being in a similar environment for a roughly equal period of time? Perhaps something about how corrosion affects the plane?

[Ric Gillespie]

We have many examples of aircraft in similar environments for similar periods of time.  The best is a Douglas TBD-1 "Devastator" at a depth of 125 feet in Jaluit lagoon in the Marshall Islands.  Coral growth depends upon sunlight so, in that respect, the deeper the better.  Corrosion does not become a big problem until the aircraft is brought to the surface and then it's a BIG problem.  TIGHAR is working with the Texas A&M's Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation (CMAC) in College Station, TX to develop and test techniques for stabilizing aluminum aircraft that have been submerged in salt water for extended periods.

[Monty Fowler]

Once again, for TIGHAR, as the saying goes, "Nothing but net!"  ;) Still, it would be nice to positively ID the aircraft, to give the families involved closure if nothing else. My thoughts are with them.

[Mike Piner]

There are a few tales of finding Amelia's electra.  It is a fact that Amelia said gas running low, and yet there it David Billings, who claims he saw a wasp engine in the mts of New Guinea that had a tag on it with SN1055.  He says he has been searching for it for 15 years. he thinks Amelia coud have conserved fuel and flew almost back to Lae.  
Tighar's hypothsis, is the most plausible, has the most evidence, and only needs some positive identification of at least one of the artifacts that we have found.
You can read this by googling "Engine in mts of New Guinea".  also http://www.electranewbritain.com.

[Mike Piner]

Sorry about the link.  Try http://ameliaearhartandpng.blogspot.com/   Mike

[Joel Rangat Wandau]

i am from the area where the plane is believed to be submerged.. though some of the locals have sighted the wreck and actually touched it we are yet to actually photograph the wreck as evidence . there are two skeletons located in the cabin upfront.. we are in the process of identifiying now with the help of qualified divers.. according to one person who actually saw it go down and several old people in the village who were around the plane crashed in 1937...before the war... the island name is matsungan island on the west coast of buka in the north of the autonomous region of bougainville

[Andrew M McKenna]

Joel

that is very interesting to hear.  Photos, of course, would help establish whether this is credible, and if there are qualified divers involved, they should be able to take the photos necessary.

You say "we are in the process of identifying..."  Who is we?  Are you directly involved?

I'd like to hear more about the eyewitness accounts, and how they remember the year as 1937.  Are there any written / recorded accounts?


The original news of this find, found at

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/4070865/Claims-Amelia-Earharts-plane-found

says the following:

"Local politicians have become involved and an expedition is to be mounted next month in a bid to confirm the identity of the plane."

Do you have any information about the local politicians or the expedition described?

Thanks

Andrew McKenna

[Mike Piner]

I don't think we need to get too excited about these reports around New Guinae.  AE flew for 11 hours from Lae, talked to Itaska  with signal getting louder, talked about going 157-337, Gas running low, all good information.  For her to show up over there on 3 hours of fuel is ridiculous

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

I don't think we need to get too excited about these reports around New Guinae.  AE flew for 11 hours from Lae, talked to Itaska  with signal getting louder, talked about going 157-337, Gas running low, all good information.  For her to show up over there on 3 hours of fuel is ridiculous

You are, of course, correct.

And yet, whatever is underwater is a "historic aircraft," ant TIGHAR stands for "The International Group for Historic Aircraft Preservation."

It is an interesting find.  It seems to me that it will be fun to see how the story turns out.  YMMV.   ;)