To Paul Parsons
A plane on the ground means people on the ground. They didn't try zooming to alert the big shiny bird.
Irv, you might try being a bit more direct so as to not be misunderstood...

I don't know that I've ever seen the orders but they may exist among the Colorado's lore published on this site. It seems clear enough that they would be looking for signs of Earhart and Noonan - floating debris; debris scattered on shore; a downed plane; people, dead or alive. Smoke. Clothing on flagpoles. Coconuts on beaches...
I have doubts that their orders were so narrow as to exclued either plane or people, but would likely be worded to include 'any and all visible signs that may exist of Earhart and / or Noonan's presence on the land or in the sea along your route of flight' or similar. Just IMO, of course. Now you make me want to dig this out a bit...
Added -
And so I have:
No direct orders, but perhaps a clue or two of Lambrecht and his flight's focus -
According to Lambrecht: "M’Kean did not require more than a perfunctory examination to
ascertain that the missing plane had not landed here, and one circle of the island proved that
it was uninhabited except for myriads of birds. Signs of previous habitation remained and the walls of several old buildings apparently or some sort of adobe construction, were still standing.
M’Kean is perfectly flat and no bigger than about one square mile."
So much for McKean. But note the airplane was an obviously sought object, as was the determination of the presence of any people. In McKean's case it was small and open enough to realize quickly that no one was there, despite clearly evident old structures.
The prospect at Gardner reads somewhat differently, fairly clearly because it was a different kind and size of island -
"...the planes proceeded to Gardner Island (sighting the ship to starboard enroute) and made an aerial search of this island which proved to be one of the biggest of the group. Gardner is a typical example of your south sea atoll … a narrow circular strip of land (about as wide as Coronado’s silver strand) surrounding a large lagoon.
Most of this island is covered with tropical vegetation with, here and there, a grove of coconut palms.
Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there. At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4000 tons) bore mute evidence of unlighted and poorly charted “Rocks and Shoals”. She lay high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places.
The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or taken off in any direction with little if any difficulty. Given a chance,
it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her plane in this lagoon and swam or waded ashore. In fact, on any of these islands it is not hard to believe that a forced landing could have been accomplished with no more damage than a good barrier crash or a good wetting."
Note the references to observed signs of 'recent habitation' - a sign of 'people', and the implicit need to contend with a screen of vegetation which may imply to some degree an appreciation that people might have been concealed there, hence 'zooming' (signs were there, where are the people... perhaps needing to emerge from the bush?).
The shipwreck was not only noticed but attentively observed, hence a rather good description provided. The potential 'wet' and 'dry' landing possibilities were noted as well. An observance for an airplane is implied by that, IMO.
Could it have been there and been missed? I believe so, if at least largely submerged in / under a heavy surf.
Like I said, not really 'orders', but maybe these things give insight to Lambrecht's methodology, and therefore perhaps in essence his response to the orders he understood. Implicitly, if looking for people lost in an airplane, you need to look for an airplane, people, stuff they may have had with them that might be showing as signs of their presence or shelter, etc. Any or all of that being a 'sign' of the lost people...