Amelia Earhart's long-lost plane likely located

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Amelia Earhart's long-lost plane likely located, research team claims

...The underwater object has been visible in photos dating back to 1938, the year after Earhart and Noonan disappeared...
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Amelia Earhart's long-lost plane likely located, research team claims

Researchers say they believe an object in a South Pacific island's lagoon is the wreck of Amelia Earhart's lost plane.
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“However, Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has expressed skepticism. "We've looked there in that spot, and there's nothing there," he told NBC News in July.”

Even Tigger is skeptical. :rofl:
 
MauleSkinner said:
“However, Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has expressed skepticism. "We've looked there in that spot, and there's nothing there," he told NBC News in July.”

Even Tigger is skeptical. :rofl:
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Tigger doesn't want the gravy train to end.
 
MauleSkinner said:
“However, Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has expressed skepticism. "We've looked there in that spot, and there's nothing there," he told NBC News in July.”

Even Tigger is skeptical. :rofl:
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He's trying to throw them off the scent. If the plane is found, his decades of free South Seas vacations paid for with donations by the gullible will come to an end.
 
Everybody knows what happened to Earhart. A mediocre pilot with an alcoholic navigator encouraged by a publicity hound husband headed out in an inadequately equipped airplane expecting to make a nearly impossible destination, and got lost and ran out of fuel. Surprise, surprise. The only unknown is exactly where. If it wasn't for the fact that she was kinda cute nobody would even care. Imagine if she'd had YouTube and TikTok...
 
Dana said:
A mediocre pilot
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interesting. I really don't know much about her...never really had all that much interest, and I'm turned off by anything that seems to be over-hyped-up...but of course I've heard the name my whole life, built into a legend
so maybe it's based on an assumption, but I thought that she was in some way legendary....as in like a legendarily accomplished pilot
Was it only because she was a female pilot in a time when there were very few female pilots?
What's the basis for considering her to be mediocre?
 
Dana said:
Everybody knows what happened to Earhart. A mediocre pilot with an alcoholic navigator encouraged by a publicity hound husband headed out in an inadequately equipped airplane expecting to make a nearly impossible destination, and got lost and ran out of fuel. Surprise, surprise. The only unknown is exactly where. If it wasn't for the fact that she was kinda cute nobody would even care. Imagine if she'd had YouTube and TikTok...
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If indeed this is the plane, they were waaaay off course. Hundreds of NM.
 
It sounds like a fun adventure for a “research” team.

Are there any other examples of an aluminum airplane surviving that long in the surf?
 
Brad W said:
interesting. I really don't know much about her...never really had all that much interest, and I'm turned off by anything that seems to be over-hyped-up...but of course I've heard the name my whole life, built into a legend
so maybe it's based on an assumption, but I thought that she was in some way legendary....as in like a legendarily accomplished pilot
Was it only because she was a female pilot in a time when there were very few female pilots?
What's the basis for considering her to be mediocre?
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Crashes, for starters. This particular trip was delayed/changed because she crashed the airplane on takeoff doing what the guy who flew with her for a while to get her up to speed in the airplane told her not to do.
 
Brad W said:
I thought that she was in some way legendary....as in like a legendarily accomplished pilot
Was it only because she was a female pilot in a time when there were very few female pilots?
What's the basis for considering her to be mediocre?
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Contemporary reports from other pilots. I don't remember the details of who said what, just the gist of what I've read. Though given the times, doubtless her sex colored people's opinions of her, both positive and negative. Even on her well publicized Atlantic flight, she was just a passenger, not the pilot.
 
Her navigator for her successful flights refused to fly with her any more. As noted above, her transatlantic flight had a competent pilot to "help out", and probably flew most of the flight.

No skilled and experienced navigator was willing to fly with her for the proposed circumnavigation. The possible fame was not enough to accept the risk, as seen by her contemporaries.

The credible possible range of crash sites is so large that finding it is a vague dream of fundraisers.
 
geezer said:
Her navigator for her successful flights refused to fly with her any more. As noted above, her transatlantic flight had a competent pilot to "help out", and probably flew most of the flight.

No skilled and experienced navigator was willing to fly with her for the proposed circumnavigation. The possible fame was not enough to accept the risk, as seen by her contemporaries.

The credible possible range of crash sites is so large that finding it is a vague dream of fundraisers.
Click to expand...

Given the navigation technology of the day, I can see how inability to hold a precise heading would be a problem when aiming for an island in the Pacific.
 
We’re looking for a small aircraft with 2 crew that was lost 88 years ago but still can’t find MH370 with 277 souls that disappeared a few years ago. Seems like there’s more interest in finding Amelia‘s airplane than MH370. Most aircraft that have disappeared are searched for a short time and then regarded as unable to locate and no more effort is expended. To keep looking after 88 years borders on the ridiculous.
 
Brad Smith said:
We’re looking for a small aircraft with 2 crew that was lost 88 years ago but still can’t find MH370 with 277 souls that disappeared a few years ago. Seems like there’s more interest in finding Amelia‘s airplane than MH370. Most aircraft that have disappeared are searched for a short time and then regarded as unable to locate and no more effort is expended. To keep looking after 88 years borders on the ridiculous.
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well, people are looking for various sailing ships that went down hundreds of years ago.
 
Brad Smith said:
We’re looking for a small aircraft with 2 crew that was lost 88 years ago but still can’t find MH370 with 277 souls that disappeared a few years ago. Seems like there’s more interest in finding Amelia‘s airplane than MH370. Most aircraft that have disappeared are searched for a short time and then regarded as unable to locate and no more effort is expended. To keep looking after 88 years borders on the ridiculous.
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Yeah, but one "historical" flight with a pretty lady, when that stuff was rare, versus one of tens of thousands of daily flights.
And we know MH370 is in bits.
 
Bob Noel said:
well, people are looking for various sailing ships that went down hundreds of years ago.
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Are you suggesting that Earhart’s Electra went down because it was overloaded with gold doubloons? :cheers:
 
The Electra had a Radio Direction Finder, not the latest and greatest of the technology at the time, but Noonan was known to be poorly skilled in its use. That led to the failure to track inbound to the destroyer on station to guide them to the fuel stop.

With a heading error of less than 90 degrees, he should have been able to guide her right across the destroyer, and track out to Howland Island. He did not even set her up on a closing course, evidenced by radio contact, then fading out of range... Unless the generators had both failed, and the batteries were failing.

With the engine damage to both engines in her crash at Ford Island, there could have been unrepaired damage to each of them, and no fault to Noonan.
 
I guess TIGHAR is out of money again.

Years ago I ran into Judy Rice at Sun N Fun right before she was to start her Amelia round-the-wold flight recreation. She introduced me to her navigator Fred. I immediately asked Noonan?
 
I didn't used to get it, why people want to believe she survived somewhere, but now I think I get it. It doesn't have anything to do with logic, or her skills, it's that there are people who grew up with her as one of their childhood heroes, and that inner 6 year old in some of us doesn't want to let go of those. If it were Wilbur Wright, or Bob Hoover that was out there, there might be more pilots trying to sort out what happened.

The part I still don't get are the people actively out there looking, or pretending to. Is it just a con for them, or do they actually believe they're going to find something? A tarot card reader with an expense account and frequent flyer miles. Maybe it doesn't matter.
 
well... it does seem that getting a sense of discovery for things...the thrill of the find...is getting more and more illusive. Think about it, a person way back a long time ago had seemingly a lot more geographic and archaeological find potential. A person could go out and find a new river or an island, or shipwreck treasure, or a "new" uncharted pyramid. All the low-hanging fruit now has been picked over, and with modern tech much of the high-hanging fruit is gone too.
It might be that hunt for discovery keeps people looking for her.
 
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Dana said:
Everybody knows what happened to Earhart. A mediocre pilot with an alcoholic navigator encouraged by a publicity hound husband headed out in an inadequately equipped airplane expecting to make a nearly impossible destination, and got lost and ran out of fuel. Surprise, surprise. The only unknown is exactly where. If it wasn't for the fact that she was kinda cute nobody would even care. Imagine if she'd had YouTube and TikTok...
Click to expand...
This. The USCG cutter providing support for her failed, but she didn't know how to operate the radio tech.

She went in screaming and crying over the radio after they ran out of gas.
 
geezer said:
Her navigator for her successful flights refused to fly with her any more. As noted above, her transatlantic flight had a competent pilot to "help out", and probably flew most of the flight.

No skilled and experienced navigator was willing to fly with her for the proposed circumnavigation. The possible fame was not enough to accept the risk, as seen by her contemporaries.

The credible possible range of crash sites is so large that finding it is a vague dream of fundraisers.
Click to expand...
I would be highly skeptical of any contemporary reports about the relative skill of a female pilot in the 1930s. I find it likely that many "skilled and experienced" navigators would have refused such an assignment regardless of her competence.
 
What is your theory for the crash taking off from Ford Island? Simply forgot what her instructor told her about taking off in a Lockheed Electra?
Lindberg said:
I would be highly skeptical of any contemporary reports about the relative skill of a female pilot in the 1930s. I find it likely that many "skilled and experienced" navigators would have refused such an assignment regardless of her competence.
Click to expand...
 
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