Everything Wrong on the Fatal Flight was All Her Fault

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Facts Verse: Ric Gillespie explains the mistakes made by AE and the Navy.

It was AE's fault that she and FN got lost.

It was the Navy's fault that she was not found on Niku.

Facts Verse: Everything that WEnt Wrong on Amelia Earhart's Flight & Rescue Mission

Early 2026.

[Colin Taylor]

To be fair;
The reason AE and FN got lost was because the Navy wind forecast (ENE) was wrong compared with the actual winds reported by Itasca (ESE). Using these data one can calculate the headings they flew based on the forecast wind (giving a left track error) and then apply the actual wind (giving left drift) to determine where they ended up (North of track, 140 to 180 miles North of Howland). This could have been done by the Navy with the information available at the time.

https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?topic=2304.0

The reason the Navy did not find them at Gardner Island was because they were never there.

The reason they were not found at all was because the Navy did not search the area where they ditched (on the 337 line of position 140+ miles North of Howland). Only the area out to about 100 miles North of Howland was searched by Itasca (on the 2nd July) and Lexington (on the 13th). See the chart from the TIGHAR archive.

At the end, Itasca's Captain Thomson was asked to nominate an area to be searched. This is shown on the map of the search effort. Most of this area was never searched although Itasca sailed through it on the night of the 4th.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

To be fair;
The reason AE and FN got lost was because the Navy wind forecast (ENE) was wrong compared with the actual winds reported by Itasca (ESE).

I respectfully disagree.

The reason they did not find Howland was that AE had completely misunderstood her radio systems and how to use her equipment to get the final vector that she and Fred needed to home in on the airstrip that had been prepared for them.

The failure of her receiver is part of that analysis. Without hearing Itasca's transmissions, AE could not be told how to produce a signal that Itasca could use to locate the plane nor could she hear the vectors to use even if the Itasca could have determined them.

She and Fred were lost long before they took off on the first leg of their last journey.


Edit:

More accurately still, she sentenced herself and Fred to death when she crashed at Luke Field on the first round-the-world attempt. That cost her the services of two excellent radiomen, who could have gotten the final vectors and who had the proper equipment for communicating in code if the voice links failed.

That is the first link in the accident chain.

Amelia learned how to fly the plane as time went on.

She did not learn how to operate her direction-finding system nor how to produce a signal that the Itasca could use for direction-finding.

[Colin Taylor]

Hi Martin

I completely agree with you about the radio. Why do you disagree about the wind?

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Hi Martin

I completely agree with you about the radio. Why do you disagree about the wind?

Because if they had gotten a bearing to Howland, they would have been able to get there.

The reason they could not get a bearing had nothing to do with the wind.

It had everything to do with their radio systems, which neither AE nor FN understood.

Mantz and Manning, by contrast, were highly proficient. Both of them bailed out of the project after the crash.

[Denise Kelsey]

It had everything to do with their radio systems, which neither AE nor FN understood.

I'm curious – and I guess we'll never really know for sure - how much decision-making input Fred Noonan had, and how much responsibility he took (or was allowed to take) for the radio? All I know is that if I was going to risk my life on a venture such as theirs, I would want to know everything about all the systems, and feel confident that my captain darn sure knew them inside and out. I don't think I would rely on "Eh, I'm sure she's got it handled." I wonder if he was aware of the deficiencies in AE's planning.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

It had everything to do with their radio systems, which neither AE nor FN understood.

I'm curious – and I guess we'll never really know for sure - how much decision-making input Fred Noonan had, and how much responsibility he took (or was allowed to take) for the radio? All I know is that if I was going to risk my life on a venture such as theirs, I would want to know everything about all the systems, and feel confident that my captain darn sure knew them inside and out. I don't think I would rely on "Eh, I'm sure she's got it handled." I wonder if he was aware of the deficiencies in AE's planning.

So far, I have not seen any materials directly from Fred that would answer these questions.

Unlike Mantz and Manning, he decided to continue flying with and navigating for Amelia.

We know that neither he nor Amelia had the requisite skills to pass the minimum Morse code test.

From https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Failure_to_communicate

Randy Jacobson, commenting on Earhart's first attempt to fly around the world:^[5]


On top of all this, a Bureau of Air Commerce official, Mr. Reining, sent a telegram to Earhart, with a copy to Miller saying that she should contact Mr. Marriott or Mr. Bedinger, the supervisory aeronautical inspector, for nonscheduled instrument rating or flight check ability to fly entirely by instruments, as her flight permits would not be released – Earhart's pilot's license was about to expire, and she needed to take her biennial flight review prior to take-off from Oakland.^[6] The next day, Bedinger gave Earhart the instrument flight check, but the written and radio tests "... not given account her desire to expedite and save engines."^[7]


This is most curious, as the engines were relatively new and would not need servicing for quite some hours, and a simple one hour test to verify her radio skills would not significantly contribute to engine wear. Nor was Earhart in a big hurry, as there were still four more days planned prior to take-off. The desire to avoid the radio test was probably the first contributing factor to Earhart's failure to reach Howland in July. Regardless, the BAC in Washington DC put her permit in an airmail package to Oakland.

Preference for voice communication (telephony)

Earhart and Noonan were ahead of their time in asking that the Itasca communicate with them solely via voice transmissions.

That is now the worldwide
norm for aircraft. In 1937, the worldwide norm was Morse code transmitted on continuous wave (CW) or modified continuous wave (MCW). The Itasca could not transmit voice on all frequencies (e.g., 7500 kHz).^[10]

"As the result of a talk with Mr. E. Chater and Mr. Balfour the Lae radio operator it is very apparent that the weak link in the combination was the crew's lack of expert knowledge of radio. Their morse was very slow and they preferred to use telephony as much as possible."^[11]

"On enquiry Miss Earhart and Captain Noonan advised that they entirely depended on radio telephone reception as neither of them were able to read morse at any speed but could recognise an individual letter sent several times. This point was again mentioned by both of them later when two different sets at Lae were used for listening in for time signals."^[12]

"Miss Earhart and Captain Noonan spent a considerable time in the radio office and as previously mentioned it was learned that neither of them could read morse at any speed but could only distinguish letters made individually slowly and repeated often; in that case their direction finding apparatus would be useless or misleading unless they were taking a bearing on a station using radiophone which could give the station position on voice. We understand the Itasca was to do this but if the plane was unable to pick up the Itasca it is doubtful if the direction finder would be any use to her."

The same page discusses AE's misunderstanding of frequencies and what she needed to do to get a heading by providing an appropriate transmission for the Itasca or by using her own equipment onboard.

From the outset of her second attempt to fly around the world, she showed the incompetence that led to her death.

[Colin Taylor]

Hi Everyone

The wind has EVERYTHING to do with it. It was the incorrect wind forecast which put them off-course to start with. Clearly AE and FN thought they were tracking towards Howland ('...we must be on you...') and FN had a plan to find the island by tracking the line of position but that failed because they were so far off-course.
It is tragic that nobody at the Navy asked the question WHY were they off-track? Knowing the forecast wind and the actual wind, I can plot where they intercepted the line of position and reported circling. This is solid data, not speculation. The Navy could have done the same with the same information. They could at least have figured that the Electra was somewhere Left of track, North of Howland.

What happened to the weather report sent by Itasca that afternoon of the 2nd July? Surely it must have ended up in the meteorological office at Pearl Harbour? Did nobody notice that the wind report was different to what was forecast? Evidently not.

When Captain Thomson decided AE was out of fuel he tried to work out which direction to search. He reasoned that the cloud was thicker to the North and therefore they were less likely to be able to determine their position with astro fixes. AE had reported that it was cloudy. The wind information could have persuaded him to go further North instead of turning to the East after about 70 miles.

Comparing the forecast winds (ENE) to the actual winds reported by Itasca (ESE), it is more plausible that they were off-course North of track than South of track. Therefore it is more plausible that they ditched North of Howland than that they ditched South of Howland (and Baker Island) or that they found Gardner Island by chance.

It is true that DF could have saved the day. According to Elgen Long, AE knew Itasca had a portable DF set which could tune her frequency. One bearing obtained with that would have told Itasca which way to search. It was not Earhart's fault that the battery went flat.

Cheers
Colin