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Have We Found Amelia?

Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

University of Oklahoma researchers are conducting DNA testing on bone fragments found on a remote and deserted Pacific Island to determine if they belong to Amelia Earhart.  Earhart and navigator, Fred Noonan, were lost on July 2, 1937, attempting a trans-global fight aboard the Electra. A massive search involving the U.S. Navy revealed nothing but weak or unintelligible signals presumably from the Electra were received. Now we may know why.

The unlucky pair may have crash landed on Nikumaroro Island surviving long enough to make a camp. In 2007 several personal items belonging to Earhart were discovered by the researchers. They have returned several times but only found the bone chips on the most recent trip. The fragments are being compared to DNA samples provided by the Earhart family.

Nikumaroro Island (formerly Gardner Island), is part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, in the western Pacific Ocean. It is a remote, elongated, triangular coral atoll with profuse vegetation and a large central marine lagoon. It is about      1,800 thousand limes from Hawaii. In a sad irony,  British survey parties began arriving in 1938 at Nikumaroro, by which time she and Noonan may have succumbed to injuries, starvation or disease.

The expedition is being led by  International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery which comprises of a band of aviation enthusiasts based in Delaware.

Source: Thaindian News

Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

45 thoughts on “Have We Found Amelia?”

  1. OS:

    You are precisely correct. I knew that when I typed it and just blundered ahead anyway. Speaking of ships, the searchers flying over Garland Island may have seen aircraft debris but thought it was an older ship wreck. The SS Norwich City ran aground in 1929 near the site where it is believed Earhart ditched the Electra.

  2. Mespo: Yes, and according to the accounts I have read, the searchers did look at what was then called Gardner Island. They saw some signs of habitation but thought the island was inhabited. They did not see an airplane or aircraft wreckage, so went on by, writing the island off. It did not occur to them, apparently, that the plane might have been perched precariously on the reef and got washed off into the water.

    Also, a detail in one of your earlier comments. You refer to the, “Navy ship Itasca.” The Itasca was not a Naval vessel. the proper designation was USCGC Itasca. It was a U. S. Coast Guard Cutter. We are kind of sensitive about that sort of thing at our house, since we are a USCG family.

  3. While the stars that oversprinkle
    All the Heavens, seem to twinkle
    With a crystalline delight;
    Keeping time, time, time,
    In a sort of Runic rhyme,
    To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
    From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
    Bells, bells, bells-
    From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

    ~ E.A. Poe, From The Bells.

    Listen to this!

  4. mespo,

    The next couple evenings are quiet and after your mention of The Gold-Bug, I asked my husband if he wanted to spend some time by the fire reading Poe. He agreed so tomorrow evening we will settle down in our reading chairs in front of the fire, sip port and interrupt each others’ reading with a … “Listen to this …”

    Thanks for the link to the Earhart research … taking it slow worked! Fascinating.

  5. OS:

    What is interesting is that Nikumaroro is on the same line of position (157/337) as Howland and,as a trained aviator, Earhart would have expected rescuers to track that path. The researchers seem to have evidence that she landed on the coral reef at low tide and then made her way to the beach along with Noonan.

  6. Howland Island, the planned destination is 1,700 miles from Hawaii. Nikumaroro Island is 1,800 miles, and they certainly had enough fuel to make it there. I have looked carefully at the Google Earth photos of Nikumaroro Island and it appears there are good beaches where one could land a Lockheed Model 10 Electra. The Electra weighs just under 6,500 pounds empty, and by the time they got there, the tanks would have been very low on fuel. There is a good chance one or both wheels of the main gear would bog down in sand unless they landed on coral. If the wheels bogged down, it would probably flip over on its back or ground loop. Landing on coral would have been the safer option, but there is also a good chance the coral would shred the tires, eliminating any chance of taking off again even if the plane were undamaged and had fuel left.

    As for dead reckoning, the odds of actually finding one’s target after almost two thousand miles of open ocean are much less than the chances of missing it. All it would take is a slightly different wind pattern than expected.

  7. Blouise:

    “You’re right … it is a little confusing but I’ll give the site another try and look more carefully.”

    *************

    Well it is a site about a treasure hunt! Think of it as re-reading The Gold-bug.>/i> 😀

  9. Bud & OS:

    Thankfully, most of your questions and commentary are actually discussed on the site. The DNA takes about 2 weeks under the best of conditions but the cost is expensive and funds are being raised according to the site.

    The navigational methodology is also discussed in the group’s hypothesis, and the next expedition (VII) will conduct a search for the aircraft on the western edge of the island where the reef slope flattens out in about 440 meters of water.

    The web site is a little tough to navigate but the best technical site page is here:

    http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Research/ResearchPapers/researchlist.html

  10. Blouise wrote:

    “Poor mespo, his only semi-defender is a guy who roams the desert looking for lost cattle.”
    ____________________

    Well Geewillikers Bee-lou-weez, thanks a lot. I guess that puts me in the same questionable category as that backless boomerang guy who said “‘this is nice, innit, getting’ banished at my time of life. What a way to spend an evening, sittin’ on a rock in the middle of the desert with me boomerang in me ‘and.”

    (The following video was posted months earlier here) Since Bud requested more aviation posts, this video even has aviation in it, although it is about “auger in”…the type of flying that should be avoided.

  11. Otteray Scribe,

    Cool machine.
    Similar to the Wilga, but a better performer by far.

    Blouise,
    I couldn’t built a toothpick if I had a floor plan.
    I really suck that way…

    But, the people with those skills are incredible.

  12. I have a good friend who works for Aircraft Wheel & Brake and they supply lots of kit manufacturers … I have gone to some trade shows and have seen some truly beautiful kits all built out and flying. They take your breath away … honestly

  13. Blouise:
    Never built one from a kit. I do have the plans for a 7/8 size WW-I SE5a fighter plane in my workshop but have not actually started construction yet. My son and I are talking about buying a Preceptor STOL (slow takeoff and landing) kit plane. This is based on the Slepcev Storch. Nestor Slepcev came up with a 3/4 size replica of the WW-II Feisler Storch, a German observation plane. This airplane can takeoff and land in an unbelievably short distance.
    http://www.preceptoraircraft.com/index.html

    If there is much wind, one can take off and land with almost zero ground roll. The Preceptor STOL King in this short video is in Korea:

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt_RXEGq-8I&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

  15. Bud
    1, December 26, 2010 at 8:04 am
    Mespo,

    I am still missing something here.

    Bones and fecal have been recovered.
    DNA tests are being conducted.
    DNA will be established.

    In what time frame do you think
    that the labs will be able to produce
    a link to some descendant of Amelia’s?

    A month? 6 months? A year?

    If these materials are proven to be
    human, there must be some parts of the
    aircraft buried or washed not too too
    far away???

    Thanks Mespo Super Sleuth…

    =====================================================

    Mespo,

    I have been wondering along the same lines as Bud … what say you?

    I wonder if anyone on the blog has ever built their own plane from a kit …

  16. Otteray Scribe,

    why do they call it a multi engine rating? As soon as you break ground, the first thing the flight instructor does is pull the mixture to off on an engine, leaving you sucking air for altitude and speed, staggering around on one engine.

    Well, technically it still has two engines… Albeit only one wants to work that day. LOL….

    I have only flown in the right seat of a P337 once.
    Fella wanted me to fly along for a few minutes. I didn’t
    know that the gear had just been overhauled…
    Sucker wanted me along to pump the damn thing when they overhauled on the cheap….

    BUT…. What an airplane..
    I still believe center line thrust is the way to go.

  17. Bud, why do they call it a multi engine rating? As soon as you break ground, the first thing the flight instructor does is pull the mixture to off on an engine, leaving you sucking air for altitude and speed, staggering around on one engine. When I got my multi rating, it felt as if I had spent twenty hours on one engine and about twenty minutes on two.

    The most fun you can have in a Cessna twin is the C-337. I have several hundred hours in a Skymaster.

  18. Otteray Scribe,

    A Grumman Cougar???
    What are you crazy?
    Just kidding, I have never set
    foot in a Cougar.

    Only once set foot in a Tiger.

    Cessna has been my savior.
    150’s, 172’s, 177’s, 177RG’s,
    182’s.

    Of course until that fateful
    fateful day…

    My multi engine rating.
    GACKKKK.
    A Piper Apache….
    Wowwww.
    A fistful of throttles.
    I never could have imagined it.

  19. Bud, If you want to survive the crash, fly a Beechcraft. If you want to avoid the crash altogether, fly a Cessna.

    First lesson was in a J-3 Cub which was brand new at the time (man, does that ever date me!). Then later solo in a C-172. Got my multi rating in a Grumman Cougar. The Cougar had the longest pre-flight checklist I have ever seen in an airplane weighing less than 100K pounds.

  20. Otteray Scribe,

    I still have my first Jeppesen computer.
    And a wind dot (believe it or not) on the
    back side.

    Yeah, you are right about dead reckoning.
    It was the “state of the art” of its day.

    I just hope you learned to fly in a CESSNA.
    It is rumored that they saved almost everyone’s
    neck. LOL

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