Print

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

The saving grace could in fact be that the bird (whichever one it is) is not in one piece. if it was there is the distinct possibility of it going over the edge into the abyss never to be seen again. In pieces there is the distinct possibility that at least one section will get hung up and stay put, no matter how small it may be. IMHO

[Gary LaPook]

Leon, I personally think not only is it possible, but might probably have happened just that way. We know from soundings that there is a second ledge around 800-900 feet down. "Could" have the electra gotten hung up there for a peiod of time? I think so. Just as I'm thinking it hung itself up at the 150 +- foot ledge. I'm not a diver---but I would thing that the deeper you go around the reef, the less current and underwater movements there is. So 'if' the Electra was at the 150 foot level, and is not at the 900 foot level, then something shifted it to make it move. Seismic activity is something to consider.
Disclaimer: I dont know the actual depths of these ledges, just what If gathered from the tables in the archives.
Tom

Water movement drops off very fast with depth as any scuba diver can tell you. There can be a hurricane on the surface but 300 feet down it is calm, submariners will tell you that.

gl

[Walter Runck]

What about the pilots from Lexington? The Lexington was not an SAR vessel either. Their job was not to spot the fall of shells from the great guns because Lexington had no great guns. Do you think that the pilots that would eventually be assigned to Lexington had different training at Pensacola than the pilots that eventually were assigned to Colorado? I think it more likely that all went through a standard naval aviator training program. Only after they received their assignments would they have gotten specific training for the type of plane that they would be flying. As for the cadets, don't you think they got some training on the way south from Hawaii on how to search and the pilots got the same training as a refresher from their prior training at Pensacola? Doens't this seem reasonable, and what we lawyers call, the standard of care?

Again, until someone comes with the complete syllabus of naval aviator training during the '30s, we are both just speculating.

Lex was laid down as a battle cruiser and finished as an aircraft carrier with eight 8 inch guns in four twin turrets which she retained until a few weeks before her loss at the Coral Sea.  Her final battle was the first in which the opposing ships did not sight or fire on each other and she was built to be able to slug it out on the surface if she had to, so her gunfire spotting requirements in 1937 were equivalent to a contemporary heavy cruiser, which carried the same type of float planes as a battleship like the Colorado .  Aircraft missions, types and pilot skill requirements were not as specialized then as they are now, so cross-training and/or transition from one squadron to another was more common.  That said, the Colorado pilots knew they were going to be landing on water alongside a ship while the carrier pilots were aiming for the 3 wire on the greasy end of the flight deck, so as always with Naval Aviation, the launch and recovery was the focus of a lot of the training. 

Note that at least some of the "Observers" on the Colorado search flights were Radiomen.  Taking the comms workload off the pilot was an early part of the job, an aspect of SAR crew management that lives on to this day. 

I'm not drawing any conclusions about aircrew training or skills or the POD of a particular search.  The point is that the people doing the searching were the best available for the task and like we say at the dragstrip, "you gotta run what you brung".

I'm inclined toward the Niku hypothesis, but this discussion of why they weren't seen by the Navy searchers has me wondering about something related.  If Nessie was there when Bevington came by, it must have been there when Lambrecht flew over.  One of the key elements of the Niku hypothesis is that the Electra disappeared cleanly enough that it was not spotted on the 9th. I had sort of accepted the idea of the plane getting washed over the edge in the days right after the radio transmissions stopped being heard, but having a mainmount ripped out argues against an intact plane going off the reef, particularly if we believe it served as a fountain of aircraft parts welling forth over the next few years.  I'm sure this was considered during discussion of the colonist's claims that there was a plane on the reef, but I have a hard time reconciling Nessie's existence in October and reports of visible aircraft debris from following years with negative search results, particularly around Norwich City.

I have no problem believing that the search produced a false negative.  I spend too much time looking for stuff I know is there not to believe people in small planes didn't see people in a jungle that they only thought might have been there.  Trying to put numbers on the odds is fun and there is some new CG SAR software that I am going to try to set up a scenario  and see what comes out of it.

[Malcolm McKay]

I think Malcolm has to provide the evidence to support what he believes in order for others to assess.  I'm sure he will either provide this evidence or let us know he can't. He understands the principle.

Actually you will discover if you read my posts on the subject that nowhere have I claimed that the New Britain hypothesis is based on any proven facts. In fact I have treated it with the same caution as I have the claims about what the Nikumaroro "evidence" demonstrate. In short all I have done is state that both have the same level of reliability based on what has been put forward as evidence to support them by their proponents. So don't blame me, blame the thinness of the supporting evidence. Frankly the only difference I see at the moment between the two hypotheses is that there are more "ice cream castles in the air" over Nikumaroro than New Britain - might be something to do with the climate  .

As for Marty's lack of knowledge about the use of construction numbers by aircraft and other manufacturers' of similarly complex machines as the means to distinguish the resulting assemblies both during manufacture and afterwards. The explanation put simply is it is a means to properly identify these items both during manufacture to make sure hand fitted or tuned items are reunited with the parent equipment, or in later years, when the registration/identification numbers etc. allotted to them after they have left the factory are changed through resale etc. so that upgrades, identified faults that have emerged can be rectified etc. I can't offer any explanation for that peculiar gap in his understanding of engineering practice, suffice to say that the manufacturers developed the system to suit their and their customers' needs so perhaps he should dispute it with them.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Actually you will discover if you read my posts on the subject that nowhere have I claimed that the New Britain hypothesis is based on any proven facts.

This confirms my impression that you are doing fact-free believing when you say that the existence of the tag is interesting and that TIGHAR should help to fund research into how it ended up in New Britain.

Since you have no proven facts (such as that the tag existed and that it was marked with C/N 1055), it follows logically that your assertion that this is an interesting coincidence worth investigation is nothing but an act of faith, not an act of objective reasoning based on evidence.

As for Marty's lack of knowledge about the use of construction numbers by aircraft and other manufacturers' of similarly complex machines as the means to distinguish the resulting assemblies both during manufacture and afterwards. The explanation put simply is it is a means to properly identify these items both during manufacture to make sure hand fitted or tuned items are reunited with the parent equipment, or in later years, when the registration/identification numbers etc. allotted to them after they have left the factory are changed through resale etc.

If I considered you an authority on airframe repair, I'd take your word for it.

I don't consider you an authority.

I don't take your word for it.

I'd like to see some documentation.  How about some pictures of some 1930s repair tags?  Some Lockheed data plates with "C/N" on them?

I'm open to be persuaded by the evidence.  I'm not open to taking these things on your say-so.

[Greg Daspit]

One of the first things that may have been done after the landing is to inspect the plane.

What abilities did they have to repair the belly antena?
edit: One of the articles about what Betty heard referenced a conversation AE may have had with someone else in Florida. (edited with reference below)
If they were having a conversation then did they need to repair the belly antenna?

Also, what capabilities did they have after the landing to take the rear wheel off so they clould change the angle of the plane and get more prop clearance to transmit longer? I see what looks like a a lift in some pictures. Would this have made much of a difference in clearance.
edit: Were the calcs on transmitting time assuming a flat on the front tires?
Edit:  The article that references somene possibly talking to AE is link below
http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/2000Vol_16/occult.pdf

[Lloyd Manley]

My main fault it appears, is that I have not unequivocally accepted the Gardner Island hypothesis although as I recall I have never said that I don't accept it. All I have ever said is that it, like the others, remains unproven. If you find that hard to understand then there is no more I can say to make it clearer to you.

I think you are being reasonable on that score. But I do think it is clear that AE/FN were there. Where the mystery remains is why and how they got there and what became of them. They need a proper burial.
 

Concerning Betty's notebook. The problem with recollections of events so long after, even with the notes as an aide memoire is that these become embellished in our minds. Perhaps the panic Betty hears isn't panic but simply Noonan telling Earhart to stop fiddling with the radio and get out of the aircraft because if you stay here any longer you will be drowned. Noonan is not panicking but exercising his authority in the manner of a seasoned skipper. He knows that one good wave or a rising tide can float the aircraft off the reef.

Yes, except he was not the skipper.

Still I remain sceptical about the Betty diary - not that I am accusing her or others of fraud but that memories play tricks, especially with recollections of an unexpected and garbled radio message. The gist of the messages may be there but the interpretation could be amiss.

Well, I think this is obvious when we look at the probability curve of the odds of her hearing all that as the embellishment builds. Its nothing against the witness, but when you hear something like she did it’s hard not to embellish a little. But since we are not in a court of law or trying to establish character but rather trying to establish scientific fact, we must focus on what parts of her testimony can be corroborated. Some of it can be.

So in effect you arguing that the post-loss messages are genuine because they don't give a reliable indication of her position. Well that's one way of looking at it I'll grant you.

Funny
 

She was not a good navigator so she couldn't be allowed to undertake the flight solo so Noonan who was an accomplished navigator, seaman and a pilot himself was hired to be the navigator. He had already achieved a promising position in aviation circles –

So did Earhart.

If the goal is to garner public support and “sand” for future expeditions this kind of tone, which is common in the AE research realm for some reason  (I won’t go there), it is probably not a winning strategy to make these kinds of comments.

AE told them what frequency to use. She told them the schedule. She told them the time zone. She told them to communicate only by voice. She told them to DF on high frequency, which they promptly screwed up by burning up batteries and not securing a shore SSDG, she gave them triangulation dashes to send a shore party to Gardner, which they did not do; and on and on. They were under a direct order of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces to support her mission. Period. I won't go into why I think some perceive her behavior as "ditzy", but I'll just note that I dissent.

You mentioned elsewhere (sorry, I’m catching up) that the debris fields recently discovered and the NC site need to be defined better. You made similar comments about Type I errors generally. In my opinion, your expectations are that this quest of discovery to resolve the disposition of AE and FN is a scientific field trip. But it is not. Thus, the bar you are placing is sufficient to ensure failure and sometimes in life you have to be willing to operate off of a hypothesis to gain faster resolution. Again, that’s just my opinion, but some of what you are saying borders on Type II errors.

Having said that, I agree that the shore evidence amassed so far doesn’t get us anywhere. I’m sorry to say that, but the moment the plane reached the “ground” the mystery resumes. The plane was there. But what AE and FN did after that is still unclear. I am not the least bit convinced they ever exited the plane at all, based largely on your arguments advanced here.

Jeff, you said… 
“What happened privately we'll never know” …

Egggzzzaccctly.

[Gloria Walker Burger]

Going back to Brad's original reason for the post, here is my scenario of what happened:

The Electra was south of Howland when AE said 'we must be on you'.
They flew north for a bit, then headed south still hoping to find Howland, but would be happy to see Baker, Winslow Reef, McKean, or Gardner.
They were about to head to the Gilberts (which was her plan, as she told Gene Vidal, if they couldn't find Howland) when they sighted Gardner Island, not knowing which island it was.
AE and FN decided that FN would go to the back of the plane for tail weight and had a somewhat rough landing.
FN injured his head badly on landing.
Not too rough for running the engine, they worked the radio for 6+ days, telling anyone who could hear that they were on an island with the wreck of the Norwich City (Betty), and that ship was on a reef south of the equator (Dana Randolph).
While sleeping inland, the plane started to move with the rising tide.
By the time they woke up the plane was headed for the edge of the reef and they weren't able to unload it.
The plane fell off the edge of the reef (every once and a while in the future flinging a part or two back over onto the reef).
On the day of the Lambrecht flyover FN was incapacitated and AE was inland banging a coconut trying to open it.
AE didn't hear the planes right away because of the noise she was making and the fact that her hearing was impaired from the long flight.
As quickly as she could, she got her kite and flew it off Nutiran (ground zero) where it was captured on a picture from someone in the Lambrecht plane who was looking elsewhere on the island when he snapped the shot, then flew away from the island.(had to put that in there
On the 10th, FN was in so much pain from the head injury, and knew he was dying. He walked into the lagoon and drowned himself to end the pain.
AE inspected the island and settled at the 7 site because of climate comfort, food access, and access to the beach for sighting rescue, as she didn't want to get caught too far inland as she was when on the northern end of the island during the Lambrecht flyover.
She kept a diary with pencil and paper in FN's sextant box, the paper was destroyed by the time Gallagher came along.
AE carved 'AE and FN' onto a Buka tree in the forest near the 7 site, not yet found.
On the 21st she succumbed to thirst and died with one of her shoes on and one of FN's shoes on because she injured her foot either on landing or on the coral.
Her bones are still on Fiji and may yet be found.

[Tim Mellon]

Going back to Brad's original reason for the post, here is my scenario of what happened:

The Electra was south of Howland when AE said 'we must be on you'.
They flew north for a bit, then headed south still hoping to find Howland, but would be happy to see Baker, Winslow Reef, McKean, or Gardner.
They were about to head to the Gilberts (which was her plan, as she told Gene Vidal, if they couldn't find Howland) when they sighted Gardner Island, not knowing which island it was.
AE and FN decided that FN would go to the back of the plane for tail weight and had a somewhat rough landing.
FN injured his head badly on landing.
Not too rough for running the engine, they worked the radio for 6+ days, telling anyone who could hear that they were on an island with the wreck of the Norwich City (Betty), and that ship was on a reef south of the equator (Dana Randolph).
While sleeping inland, the plane started to move with the rising tide.
By the time they woke up the plane was headed for the edge of the reef and they weren't able to unload it.
The plane fell off the edge of the reef (every once and a while in the future flinging a part or two back over onto the reef).
On the day of the Lambrecht flyover FN was incapacitated and AE was inland banging a coconut trying to open it.
AE didn't hear the planes right away because of the noise she was making and the fact that her hearing was impaired from the long flight.
As quickly as she could, she got her kite and flew it off Nutiran (ground zero) where it was captured on a picture from someone in the Lambrecht plane who was looking elsewhere on the island when he snapped the shot, then flew away from the island.(had to put that in there
On the 10th, FN was in so much pain from the head injury, and knew he was dying. He walked into the lagoon and drowned himself to end the pain.
AE inspected the island and settled at the 7 site because of climate comfort, food access, and access to the beach for sighting rescue, as she didn't want to get caught too far inland as she was when on the northern end of the island during the Lambrecht flyover.
She kept a diary with pencil and paper in FN's sextant box, the paper was destroyed by the time Gallagher came along.
AE carved 'AE and FN' onto a Buka tree in the forest near the 7 site, not yet found.
On the 21st she succumbed to thirst and died with one of her shoes on and one of FN's shoes on because she injured her foot either on landing or on the coral.
Her bones are still on Fiji and may yet be found.

I respectfully disagree, Ms. Burger. IMHO both AE and FN went down with the ship, most of which lies in the vicinity of Site #1 (2012).

[Tim Mellon]

And here is yet another point of view.

[Chris Johnson]

And here is yet another point of view.

Working link would be good.

[Irvine John Donald]

There is a working link Chris. I clicked on the words "another point of view" and it took me to the web link.

[Chris Johnson]

There is a working link Chris. I clicked on the words "another point of view" and it took me to the web link.

I get this but it could be a work/filter issue

[Chris Johnson]

Got it through this Link

I wish I had Mr Mellons eyes and does some of the Navigation Stuff smack of Mr Van Asten?

How would you have evidence of blood? I'd like a scientific answer to that one with links please

So to recap what we have is crashed and floated to Niku, hit the reef edge and sank.  Crew made crude resperator to avoid drowning.  Que Clive Cussler.

[Ric Gillespie]

There is a working link Chris. I clicked on the words "another point of view" and it took me to the web link.

Interesting blog. All the answers to the Earhart mystery, including a psychological evaluation of your obedient servant; a treatise about "advanced life" on Mars; ponderings on The Final World Order; a condemnation of "Bloody Neoliberal 'Democracy'; it gets better and better.  Don't miss the "About" page.

And you thought THIS forum was weird.