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[Tom Swearengen]

Dr Jim--
good points. read over the reports of the expedition teams that have been to Niku, walked the reef, worked in 120* heat, took their water to the island, etc.
Also remember----I havent been there, but many on this forum have. Andrew Mc Kenna has SCUBA'ed the reef. Excellent frst-hand information.
In the 7 days from the disappearance to the Lambrecht overflight, the Electra vanished. I would think that if there is enough evidence to convince Ric to go to State, and State to Ballard, and HE is convinced, I'd say something is there. The team that has put together all of the assets, the sponsors, the equipment , and the man and woman hours certainly would not have done all of that if there wasnt something substancial.
Hang with us-----this is going to get exciting.

[Evan McIntosh]

Tom,

i thought that people who inhabited the island several years after the disappearance noted substantial plane wreckage - or a mostly intact plane - on the reef at the suspected landing site. This would indicate that the plane wasn't washed off the reef for many years after landing - not days!

[Chris Johnson]

Dr Jim,

the cadavar dog sounds like a good idea, just as ground penetrating Radar did for the last expedition.  Howver Niku may look small but its a large and complex site.  Where would you start? Not the village as the remains of the islanders will be there.  The Seven Site? Not a bad place as its well known and maybe thats where Fred met his end.

Then where?  There are family plots with graves over many parts of the island.  The Vola may cover a site and K9 may not be able to access because of this.

Now if someone could prove that a dog could find 75 year old remains in a Pacific Atoll environment then you'd have my vote.

[Dr James Younghusband, D.C.]

When I was young I saw a 727 go into Lake Michigan.  We had wreckage washing up on the shore for quite a while.  While this is a different situation as there were likely radio calls made from the airplane after it's landing, so it is it quite possible it was largely in tact after landing, I am guessing when I say, it would likely be shedding pieces that would wash up from time to time, even it were washed off of the reef mostly in tact.

Yes, I am quite hopeful this next expedition with the deep ROV equip could finally bring home real answers to one of the great mysteries of our time.  I am more than happy to contribute any info that I can about cadaver dogs or search dogs.  I presently have a dog that I work for search work, and have a young dogs in training. 

Chris,  A dog is a good working tool as they can cover a large area in a relatively short amount of time.  GPR from what I know if it, moves at a very, very slow pace.  In that kind of heat, much of the K-9 work would be done in the dusk to dawn time frame.  Only way I know of to test would be bury some old bones in the sand on a beach and bring in the dog.  Old bones would be somewhat difficult to get, but not impossible. 

[Bruce Thomas]

i thought that people who inhabited the island several years after the disappearance noted substantial plane wreckage - or a mostly intact plane - on the reef at the suspected landing site. This would indicate that the plane wasn't washed off the reef for many years after landing - not days!

Evan,

I've spent countless hours over the past 7 years reading as much of the contents of the TIGHAR website as I could, and still despair that there is so much more to read (while my aging mind tries to prevent retention of what I already have read), but darned if I can recall anything that alludes to any of the colonists seeing substantial plane wreckage, or a mostly intact plane, anywhere on Nikumaroro.

So, would you please point me (exploiting the easy-to-use markup conventions for links provided by the SMF software that this Forum uses) to the documents that tell of those things that I cannot remember ever having read here. 

As an example of how easy it is to provide a link to any document on the TIGHAR website, and showing how easy it is to provide in a posting's markup, as well as an example of my Swiss-cheese memory, Earhart Project Research Bulletin #56 is something I re-read last night.  At first, I thought to myself, "Wow!  How did I miss reading this when it came out two years ago?!?!?"  But then, slowly, I realized that all the pictures and diagrams were indeed familiar, and that it was indeed something that I'd read before.  Even though it does describe that Emily Sikuli "saw debris that her father told her was airplane wreckage on the reef edge at low tide about 100 meters north of the Norwich City shipwreck," nothing in that communicates to me that the debris was substantial.

[Chris Johnson]

Dr Jim

I've no doubt that a cadaver dog can cover large distances.

My reference GPR was not the slowness but the unpredicatble results that TIGHAR got with it.

With much of the island settled my concern would be for null positives.  Bodies but not those of FN/AE but the remains of settlers such as the two grave sites already dug by TIGHAR with the permission of the Kiribati Gov.  How patient would they be after 5 + more requests that disturbed the final resitng places of settlers.

[Dr James Younghusband, D.C.]

Chris, I know of no fool proof way to conduct any investigation, all investigative methods have strengths and weaknesses.  I would not consider the discovery of a buried person a fault or false positive if it were an islander, but rather as an HR site to be logged for further exploration if appropriate, or avoided if already known.  In that way a diagram of all known HR sites could be marked and those not pertaining to the AE/FN search disregarded.  I would think it would be much the same with an ROV site.  Several  unknown pieces of salvage are discovered on any search, and these marked, for future reference.  It is from collecting these pieces of information that a larger picture may be drawn.

We know from earlier reports that several HR items were discovered, and recorded, partial skull, etc, but lost at some future date.  We also know from these records that there are still many parts of that same known cadaver still undiscovered and these are likely still within 100 yards or so of the original discovery site, as that is the longest distance I believe a crab etc, could move human bones. (speculation on my part)  I would think any bone recovered from that area, 7 I believe(?) would be of interest.  A whole cadaver from that site would be a huge find, but I would think single small bones, would be also be of extreme interest as any islanders would have been buried whole.

[Chris Johnson]

Agree if K9 were a possible then the 7 site is ideal though possibly the crabs have devoured the bones but hey ho i'm not against the idea

[Harry Howe, Jr.]

Dr. Jim
With respect to cadavers and bones, go to Ameliapedia above, then Technical Papers, then The Wreck of the Norwich City by Janet Powell.  She details the incident and the rescue and writes about 8 crew members never found nor accounted for. Perhaps some or all of their remains washed up onto the beach during the period between  the rescue (Decenber 1929) and the settling of the Island (December 1938).

Read also the Emily Sikuli interview with Ric and Dr. King in which she relates hearing stories from her father and others about the presence of bones of as many as 10 individuals on the beach when the settlers arrived.  Bear in mind that she was in her seventies relating stories she heard when she was 12 or so.

Welcome to the venture.

[Dr James Younghusband, D.C.]

So many bones, and such a small island.  Wouldn't it make sense to start any search for bones at the site where the original skull and shoe fragments were recovered?

[Gary LaPook]

When I was young I saw a 727 go into Lake Michigan.  We had wreckage washing up on the shore for quite a while.  While this is a different situation as there were likely radio calls made from the airplane after it's landing, so it is it quite possible it was largely in tact after landing, I am guessing when I say, it would likely be shedding pieces that would wash up from time to time, even it were washed off of the reef mostly in tact.

NTSB Identification: DCA66A0002
14 CFR Part 121 Scheduled operation of UNITED AIR LINES INC
Aircraft: BOEING B-727, registration: N7036U

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 FILE    DATE          LOCATION          AIRCRAFT DATA       INJURIES       FLIGHT                        PILOT DATA
                                                               F  S M/N     PURPOSE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1-0030  65/8/16    LAKE MICHIGAN ILL   BOEING B-727        CR-  6  0  0  SCHED DOM PASSG SRV       AIRLINE TRANSPORT, AGE
        TIME - 2021                    N7036U              PX- 24  0  0                            42, 17142 TOTAL HOURS, 82
                                       DAMAGE-DESTROYED    OT-  0  0  0                            IN TYPE, INSTRUMENT
                                                                                                   RATED.
        OPERATOR - UNITED AIR LINES,INC.
        TYPE OF ACCIDENT                                         PHASE OF OPERATION
           COLLISION WITH GROUND/WATER: CONTROLLED                  IN FLIGHT: DESCENDING
        PROBABLE CAUSE(S)
           MISCELLANEOUS - UNDETERMINED
        FACTOR(S)
           MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS - AIRCRAFT CAME TO REST IN WATER
         FIRE AFTER IMPACT
        REMARKS- N7036U CRASHED INTO LAKE MICHIGAN.

Index for Aug1965 | Index of months
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Most experts thought that the pilot misread the altimeter by 10,000 feet, see attached image of the type of altimeter that was in use. In this image, the "minute" hand shows 180 feet and the "hour" hand which is really the "thousand foot" hand and shows zero "thousands" so the altimeter might be reading on 180 feet. but the triangle above the "1" is the "ten thousands" foot hand so the actual reading is 10,180. Apparently the 727 pilots didn't notice that the "ten thousands" foot pointer on their altimeter was not on the "1" but was on the "0."   

There is an error in the attached image. The "barber pole" area seen at the bottom of the image should not be visible and should be covered by a shutter connected to the "ten thousand" foot pointer and is completely covered by this shutter above 10,000 feet so should not be shown in the image. As you descend below 10,000 feet, more and more of this barber pole area becomes visible and is there to warn the pilots that they are descending through the last 10,000 feet down to sea level. The pilots apparently did not notice this additional warning. Because the possibility of mis-reading these three pointer altimeters, jets today have switched to drum type altimeters like the second attached image.

gl

[Dr James Younghusband, D.C.]

Yep, was standing on the beach that day with two friends.  Though "fire after impact," was not what we saw.  What I saw was fire before impact.  We were young and no one wanted to listen to what we had to say.

[Chris Johnson]

agree that should a succesfull trial be carried out before and expedition to Niku (this years looks like its 100% focused on the dep sea search) then yes it makes sense to look again at the 7 site and its close environ.

But yest the island has many bones for its short history.

[Gary LaPook]

There is an error in the attached image. The "barber pole" area seen at the bottom of the image should not be visible and should be covered by a shutter connected to the "ten thousand" foot pointer and is completely covered by this shutter above 10,000 feet so should not be shown in the image. As you descend below 10,000 feet, more and more of this barber pole area becomes visible and is there to warn the pilots that they are descending through the last 10,000 feet down to sea level. The pilots apparently did not notice this additional warning. Because the possibility of mis-reading these three pointer altimeters, jets today have switched to drum type altimeters like the second attached image.



gl

I went flying yesterday and took this picture of the instrument display. These flat panels are coming into use these days even in small planes but they add a lot to the price of a new plane. This is what is known as "a glass cockpit." The photo shows the "moving tape type display" of altitude along the right edge of the display. This format has been used for many years in jets before the development of "glass" and was then done with a mechanical display. The "tape" moves up and down and has a magnified section in the middle to clearly show your altitude which is 1680 feet in the photo.

gl

[Tom Swearengen]

Evan---I dont disagree with what you are saying. In fact I would love to think that electra parts were on the reef and beach when Lambrecht fly over the island on July 9. He didnt report any 'visible' wreckage, only signs of recnet habitation. I would think that at 400+- feet he was flying at, and could see 'signs of recent habitation', he would also see parts of the electra on the reef or the beach. One of 2 things happend that day----Either the electra --all of it or including dislodged parts -were already over the reef ledge and out of visible site, or he didnt overfly the suspected area where the later inhabitants claim to have seen wreckage.
This also makes me wonder about the overflight in reguards to the Nessie picture. 'Something' is seen in the picture taken several months after the disappearance, and NOT seen 7 days after it happened. Now, if in fact Nessie is a landing gear strut visible in the picture, that means the it came off the plane sometime between july 2, and July 9, and the plane went over the reef ledge and out of sight from the air. It stands to reason that the search planes should have been able to see something breaking in the waves on the reef, unless the tide completely covered it. I would think that IF they saw it as not a part of the NC wreckage, they would have landed to investigate. If nothing else, to investigate the signs of inhabitation.
I'm just thinking that the overflight search may have been just that, flying over the island, and not really looking, just logging air time. I know thats a cruel thing to say. But, if Nessie IS a landing gear strut, how is it possible that it is there in the pic, and NOT there 7 days after the disappearance?
Someone smarter than me explain it so I can understand it.