aircraft parts villagers had?

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Has asking the Woodshole Oceanographic Institute for assistance been considered?

Yes.

[JNev]

Thanks Richard. I thought it wasn't covered enough but don't have the experience to say for sure.

Jeff, did the Electra have fabric covered panels as you describe?  Surely the fabric wouldn't last long?

Irv, sorry - I have long overlooked answering your question -

The Electra was all-metal, no fabric used on control surfaces.

[George Pachulski]

Interesting to note that the interaction of seawater and diffrent metals and how that results in corosion and metal disintegration.

http://geminimarinesurvey.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/Marine_Metal_Corrosion.325111027.pdf

Seems that even aluminum can deteriorate very quickly in the dynamic environment that  the reef  edge on the jagged corals  can produce.

[robin deatherage]

The Plane Drifted partially submerged until it reached the island. This would greatly explain the search planes on the fly over to miss it and the explanation of wreckage washing up after a storm. It could have splashed down anywhere. And it would be extremely hard to spot a silver plane and non emergency rescue colors in the water. A ship could have been a mile away and never see them. Even today with GPS ang bright orange and yellow colors rescues can and do fail.

[Monty Fowler]

Ummm, Robin? Not to be a wet blanket, so to speak, but the top of the horizontal stabilizer and the leading edges of the wings of Earhart's Electra were painted what is now known as International Orange. TIGHAR knows this because it has a fragment from the Luke Field crash that has that color on it.

And have you ever seen an aluminum aircraft in the bright sunlight? In the water, I grant you, it might not have shown up as well as on land, but aluminum in shallow water can and does show up quite well: see here - http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/56_WhereIsElectra/56_WhereIsElectra.htm and scroll down to the 1953 entry.

LTM, who tries to keep the wheels on the bus,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER

[Chris Johnson]

Thinking about parts that washed up on the reef, any further information about the supposed 'door' that children played with?  This cropped up from the Solomon's to Nikumaroro village if I remember rightly.

[Jeffrey Pearce]

A further thought on NR16020 parts, have the pools/holes in the 'boat channel' between the reef flat and beach been thoroughly searched?
Just woundering if a piece or pieces of 16020 are lying in the bottom of these 4-6 foot deep pools, maybe under a few inches of sand or sediment.

I think Shaw's question is a good one. I have been thinking about asking a similar question but before I did I found Shaw's. If metal airplane parts fell into the 'boat channel' is there a possibility they could still be there? I think so. If AE or Fred's remains fell into the channel some of the remains such as bones could be there. I have read that sharks have been seen in the 'boat channel'. I suppose this could be a deterent . Is the 'boat channel' or other depressions that may hold plane or human parts under consideration for examination if they have not already been examined?

Jeff P.

[JNev]

Maybe anything is possible, but what is likely? 

In looking back at the old post you quoted I ran across this -

I'll predict that they don 't slide very far down the side of the reef before getting caught in pretty shallow water where they will stay forever, but I could be wrong.

https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,481.msg6151.html#msg6151

gl

Gary, what makes you think that the peices would get caught up in shallow water? If this was the case then the action of waves, tides and storms would be more likely to move the peices out of the shallow areas and onto the reef flat as when the waves hit the shallow areas the energy within tem is released.

I've done a lot of diving on reefs and they have an infinite number of nooks, crannies, protuberances, and coral heads to catch stuff. The TIGHAR theory also relies on this to get the aircraft pieces to the natives. If the plane went over the edge and did not get caught in shallow water then it would have sunk to such a depth that none of the pieces would ever have come back up because wave action does not extend very far below the surface and gets attenuated very rapidly. So it TIGHAR is correct I would expect some pieces to still be found at a fairly shallow depth that has already been searched by the ROV with nothing found.

gl

I think Gary was onto something in that.

Which is sobering to me in that it seems IF the Electra had been ON Niku and did slip into the depths, she would have had to do a lot of parts shedding in the shallows on her way down to Davy Jones' Locker for that sort of parts migration and deposit to happen, otherwise the depths would hold her until some gravity reversal took hold or something...

IF she was there and didn't plunge so deeply as to escape the active surf, then it seems we ought to have found a wealth of junk by now: yes we have an anecdotal record of a 'plane' there, but generally where wreckage is within reach, I would *think* (not daydreaming) that all kinds of stuff might have gotten fetched off and used or hoarded such that it might be found in such a setting. 

Of all the 'airplane parts' looked at from that island so far, only a sherd of plexiglass and 2-2-V-1 seem to have been serious candidates - and the latter at least doesn't seem to fit.  I'm not sure what the odds are of other parts finding their way into the area you speak of, but it seems like a very remote possibility at best, IF the Electra was there.

Looks more to me as time passes and I reflect on the things considered so far as if deep waters are the place to look, notwithstanding the sonar 'anomaly'. 

That said, there is an awful lot of deep water one would have to look through.

[Jeffrey Pearce]

After landing on Nikumaroro it is possible that AE would desire to get to shore in order to save her plane. If she got far enough she would come to the 'boat channel' and perhaps enter it. It's also possible that her plane would be substantially damaged on the way to shore. If metal parts fell from the plane it is possible that they would work their way to shore via wave action and then fall into the 4-6 foot deep 'boat channel' as Shaw described the 'boat channel' dimensions. Some of the heavier parts that also have little length by width area could possibly survive in the 'boat channel' for a long time.

Jeff P.

[Ric Gillespie]

Some of the heavier parts that also have little length by width area could possibly survive in the 'boat channel' for a long time.

We'll look again but we've been all through that boat channel.