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Author Topic: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival  (Read 286829 times)

Tom Swearengen

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #30 on: February 17, 2012, 10:58:39 AM »

Sounds pretty likely, except I doubt that they tried to tie up the electra as others have specualted. The reef edge is a pretty good way from the tree line
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John Ousterhout

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #31 on: February 17, 2012, 11:08:23 AM »

Someone landing on the reef in an emergency might not consider whether it's high tide or low, just that it's a place to land.  A few hours later, the rising tide might come as a surprise, while the pilot and passenger are otherwise preoccupied with troubleshooting what went wrong and how to signal for help.  Thinking about drinking water would wait until thirst dominated their thoughts.  By then it may have been too late to find water.
Cheers,
JohnO
 
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Tom Swearengen

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #32 on: February 17, 2012, 11:19:38 AM »

Agreed John---
What they did or didnt do is the big mystery. If Fred was in fact injured in the landing, then she would have had to think for herself about a million things. Personal opinion----I find that AE was a pilot, and maybe not one to know about other parameters of the flight. Radio, some nav stuff, and certainly a contingency plan if the flight missed Howland. HUM_--------maybe she DID have a plan, and we havent uncovered it yet. That might be interesting research.
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Harry Howe, Jr.

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #33 on: February 17, 2012, 11:36:45 AM »


Tom, John
Tie off plane-  agree that it wouldn't haave been a high priority, and the distance to something solid enough to tie off to was large.

Tides-
We must remember that FN was an expert navigator and a certified marine captain.  He knew all about tides and after landing in what was at or nearly low tide, a rising tide wouldn;'t be a surprise. Now for the "however", howexer, if he was injured during the landing, as seems to be the case, then all bets are off
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Andrew M McKenna

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #34 on: February 17, 2012, 12:32:21 PM »

Hi Andrew---since youve been diving over there-----give us your inpressions of the reef----
Tom

We dove the reef face from the landing channel up to near the NW tip of the island from the surf line down to 60 to 80 Ft in depth looking for anything that might seem to be out of place.  This included swimming up pretty much each and every valley or channel in the shallows next to the reef edge to see if there was anything lodged in those channels, so a lot of it was body surfing up the channels with the surge to a point where the waves were breaking, and then surfing out again. 

The reef in 2001 was very healthy with a lot of fish, live coral, turtles and sharks.  From a diver's point of view, it was spectacular, with visibility upwards of 100 ft on many days.  The reef drops off steeply at about a 45 degree slope to a depth deeper than we were willing to go.  The only man made stuff we found was directly downslope of the NC wreck, and there really wasn't as much of it as we expected - a few pipes, some steel plate, few other mis, and that was it.  The back end of the ship was nowhere to be seen, and there really wasn't even a scar in the reef where it went down.  The ROV in 2010 found little there as well, down to some 900 ft.  Will be interesting to find the rest of the NC someday when we have deep water capability.

In 2007 the reef was nowhere near as healthy, and the number of fish were way down.  I did not do any diving in 2007.  There had been a general warming in the area in 2002 that apparently killed a lot of the coral, some sort of El Nino effect.  By 2010, much of the reef seems to have recovered.

What else would you like to know?

Andrew
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Harry Howe, Jr.

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #35 on: February 17, 2012, 01:15:04 PM »


Chris
Excellent post and considering the things that they prolly had on board (the Luke things) and the things that they prolly found at the NC camp they  seem to have had enough moisture items to stem off dehydration.
 Kinda eases off the pressure to find water for a bit and allows them to explore the island.
 "Camp Zero" would prolly be close to the plane, at least while the radio was working,
Their explorations might have uncovered the clearing that we now call the Seven Site. 

Regarding the funnel and chamois, I think that they were for filtering the fuel.  Thoughts?
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Harry Howe, Jr.

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #36 on: February 17, 2012, 01:27:29 PM »


Andrew
What is your "take" on the ROV video and the Stills with respect to what might be down there on the "playeau"?
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Jaeson Koszarsky

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #37 on: February 17, 2012, 01:39:31 PM »

Would you be able to get enough indirect water in your diet from just eating from the local plant & animal menu?

Did either AE or FN have known food allergies?  Shellfish for example.

If you were in FN's position and AE said she was landing on the reef, would you prefer to touch down seated up front or in back?  What emergency reef landing precautions would be taken? 

I watched the TIGHAR helicopter fly-over tour of the island.  It'd be real easy to miss seeing people.  The plane would be easier to spot unless it went into the deep or was otherwise hidden somehow.  What materials on the island could you make a possible SOS type sign with?  What message would be used?  If you could make a fire, what would work best for generating a more visible smoke signal?

Jaeson Koszarsky
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Jeff Victor Hayden

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #38 on: February 17, 2012, 01:43:45 PM »

I tend to disagree with the idea that AE/FN expired straight after the last signals.

1.   Luke field inventory  shows a number items that they are likely to have had similar for the Lae/Howland stretch that could provide nutrition and fluids – Chocolate bars, dried fruit, canned tomato juice and a Funnel with Chamois Strainer

2.   The Norwich City Shelter would have had suitable fluids such as canned water, condensed milk and meats in gravey

3.   It is likely that there was at least one other camp after camp Zero and the 7 site where Bevington saw signs of a bivouac and TIGHAR found the shoe parts and a clam bush that was firstly thought of as ancient but now could be more modern

4.   The 7 site has a number of fire features; my simple idea is at least one fire a night.

This to my mind suggests at least two weeks if not more of survival.

Good points Chris and, it might explain the dismantled/damaged pocket knife. Unless they had a can opener with them how else would they break into the tinned/canned goods? Put the blade point on the can lid edge and bash the back end of the pocket knife to open the cans, until the knife breaks, then you've had it.
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Tom Swearengen

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #39 on: February 17, 2012, 01:55:42 PM »

Andrew---I'm a little curious. At the reef where the Norwich City is, you said the you dove that area where the stern was/wasnt, but there didnt appear to be any reef damage like I would have thought if the stern of a ship were to have slid down the reef slope. So I guess my question would be, did it apear to be 'new' growth, or say 65 year growth that could have 'filled in' the crevass? I would think that several tons of steel would make a big mess of a reef. OR, was the stern far enough away from the reef line to have dropped off into the deep water without damaging the reef?
HUM  maybe--just maybe the tide took the electra off the reef, and it floated for a time before filling with water. During that time, the tides took it away from the reef slope, and when it sank it made it to the bottom INTACT. The bottom is deep there ( by the charts 3500 to 4000 ft) so it 'could be' a possiblity??
Thank you for your efforts Andrew!!
Tom
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Gary LaPook

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #40 on: February 17, 2012, 02:27:43 PM »

Harry,

ref the filter, IF it was on board then IF I thought that I could filter water through it then i'd use it.  Couple of IF statements though.
I assume you are talking about the "Funnel with Chamois Strainer." Chamies were commonly used to filter fuel so have nothing to do with filtering water and certainly could not desalinate seawater.

gl
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C.W. Herndon

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #41 on: February 17, 2012, 06:09:50 PM »

Would you be able to get enough indirect water in your diet from just eating from the local plant & animal menu?

Did either AE or FN have known food allergies?  Shellfish for example.

If you were in FN's position and AE said she was landing on the reef, would you prefer to touch down seated up front or in back?  What emergency reef landing precautions would be taken? 

I watched the TIGHAR helicopter fly-over tour of the island.  It'd be real easy to miss seeing people.  The plane would be easier to spot unless it went into the deep or was otherwise hidden somehow.  What materials on the island could you make a possible SOS type sign with?  What message would be used?  If you could make a fire, what would work best for generating a more visible smoke signal?

Jaeson Koszarsky

Hi Jaeson and welcome to the Forum. I don't claim to be an expert but I will try to answer your questions until someone else can do a better job.

1. I would think that you could get some of the moisture that you needed from indirect sources but keep in mind that this a tropical island where temperatures frequently soar above 100F degrees with very high humidities so keeping hydrated would probably be a constant chore.

2. I have not seen anything that would indicate that either of them did or did not.

3. From things I have seen on the forum I don't think there was even a real seat in the rear of the aircraft, probably just a corner of a piece of plywood to sit on. Other posts I have seen lead me to believe FN spent a lot of his time up front (mostly my opinion though). Other than fastening their seat belts and ensuring all loose objects were as secure as possible, I don't know of much else they could have done.

4. The TIGHAR theory is that at most of the Electra probably was washed over the edge of the reef before the search aircraft flew over the island. After the first attempt at the flight ground looped at Luke Field severly damaging the Electra, the Navy recorded a very complete inventory of the items inside the aircraft before it was shipped back to ths States for repair. Several survival items were included in the inventory including a signal pistol with 14 signal shells. Although there is nothing to verify it, it is assumed that the signal items were included on the second flight. There were apparently 2 parachutes on the last part of the flight from Lae to Howland Island. These could have been used for both signalling as well as protection from the sun.

Read Ameliapedia for a good start of the mass of information about this story collected on this site.

Again welcome to the TIGHAR Forum.
Woody (former 3316R)
"the watcher"
 
« Last Edit: February 17, 2012, 06:12:54 PM by Clarence W. Herndon »
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Harry Howe, Jr.

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #42 on: February 17, 2012, 06:42:35 PM »


Chris
Somehow, I knew you weren't suggesting the use of the Chamois for a mens of desalination  but as a means of filtering out 'unk and creepy crawlees from water collected in depressions, off of leaves etc
 My only caveat would be to thoroughly rinse, squeez, rinse, squeez, etc the Chamois in ocean water if I knew it had been used to filter fuel.
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Harry Howe, Jr.

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #43 on: February 17, 2012, 10:55:11 PM »


Jeff Victor
Re: Knife and blade
The Luke Field Inventory listed a lot of tools on the plane that would be much better at opening cans, etc than a pocket knife.  Things like a hand ax, screwdriver, cold chisel, hammer, etc. ( now comes the "however"), however, they all prolly went over the edge with the plane.
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Jeff Victor Hayden

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Re: Deserted Island, Castaways, Survival
« Reply #44 on: February 18, 2012, 03:27:54 AM »


Jeff Victor
Re: Knife and blade
The Luke Field Inventory listed a lot of tools on the plane that would be much better at opening cans, etc than a pocket knife.  Things like a hand ax, screwdriver, cold chisel, hammer, etc. ( now comes the "however"), however, they all prolly went over the edge with the plane.
No, that's a good point Harry. Hand axe, screwdriver, cold chisel and hammer if found by the Gilbertese colonists would be very useful to them, so I wouldn't be surprised if AE and FN took them onto the island and then they were found later and put to good use.
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