PPRuNe Forums - Where are you Amelia? (2024)

There are many accounts of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Frank Noonan during their planned route from Lae PNG to Howland Island in the Central Pacific region. During my time flying 737's with Air Nauru (1976-88) at least three of our routes crossed their presumed track in the region of the then Gilbert Islands now called Kiribati.

Flying at high altitudes we could look down and see the literally thousands of small cumulus clouds dotting the vast ocean from horizon to horizon - each cloud casting a shadow on the water. With their Lockheed flying over the Pacific among those low level clouds where the base of the fair weather CU would be around 1000 ft and tops around 3000 ft, any one of those shadows could be an atoll. It was an illusion of course.

The distance from Lae to Howland Island (itself a tiny atoll albeit with an airstrip) is 2556 statute miles. That's a long way in a small twin engine aircraft not much bigger than a Piper Chieftain and certainly not as fast.
The estimated flight time was between 20 and 23 hours passing through two time zones. It was reported they flew at 12,000 ft some of the way which raises the spectre of mild hypoxia made worse with time at that altitude.

It is after the sun rises, that thousands of small Cu clouds start to appear. Even if only 10 miles off track after 18 hours plus of flight (remarkable navigation for a tired crew) and flying between these clouds, it would have been almost impossible to spot a tiny atoll under its duty Cu among the hundreds surrounding it. Many times I have approached Nauru on descent, unable to spot the island among the low clouds until 15 miles out - keeping in mind we were using the island NDB and DME so we knew where we were

I am not a conspiracy buff and therefore don't believe any other reason for the disappearance of Amelia Erahart's Lockheed other than the limitations they faced. That included sheer mind-blowing fatigue, lack of reliable navigation aids, purportedly no autopilot, the huge distance they set out to fly in a small aircraft to a tiny atoll which was their destination. Add to that the almost impossible task of seeing land under seemingly 8/8ths small separated Cu cloud cover with a base of 1000 ft tops 3000 ft which in that region is typical of Pacific weather at sunrise.

After sunrise in that remote part of the Central Pacific called the Gilbert Islands, every shadow cast by the sun looks like a tiny atoll. With a thousand shadows, which one could be Howland Island to a desperately tired crew?

Oh, I thought you meant Amelia...

Amelia Warner

No radar on the Lockheed or at Howland Is. either...unfortunately.

Centaurus...you have seen those things that others have only dreamed of.... in that long delirious blue. And that VAST Pacific.. Sure is an awful lot of water out there !

Seen the shadow trap tho, gave it eta + 15, ignored the many "islands" and headed off to the next place...after some sweaty dr and guesstimates...to the right destination...fortunately. (SE, one radio. lighty)

Frank Noonan was given to be one of the top trans-Pacific navigators of his day, so always figured that he would have had a back up plan if things were not working out.
But what....??? All the way back to Rabaul...I dont think anybody even contemplated the idea. But....

MH 370 has taken it from top billing. I wonder if it is still unfound and talked about 80 years hence.

This 'may' be a cloo......

Dated today, 6.7.2017....

Lost photo could solve Amelia Earhart mystery

Cheers:ok:

Interesting photo but.... pre war plenty of other europeans about..
Would need to see more of the picture to see a Lockheed size whatever. behind the boat, at far right ??

While Frank may have overdone it (true/false) the night before take off...he had plenty of time to recuperate before the following daybreak...and he was a very good navigator.
So there would have been a contingency plan for sure.

[URL=http://s2.photobucket.com/user/HSWL/media/Pacific%20ocean%20001_zps0g7r5awe.jpg.html]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y25...ps0g7r5awe.jpg[/URL

At last managed to get this photo into Pprune by trial and error and much gnashing of teeth. But couldn't get rid of extraneous text above picture.

They say one picture is worth a thousand words. This is such a picture and taken over the approx track that the Lockheed was estimated to have flown over the Gilbert Islands group of atolls (now Republic of Kiribati) while trying to find Howland Island. Taken from an Air Nauru Boeing 737 circa 1979.

As mentioned before, it is all too easy to imagine how a tired crew after 18 hours of hand flying, could miss Howland Island (only 1.5 miles long) among the plethora of low altitude Cu clouds that are a characteristic of that part of the Pacific after sunrise. Each cloud casts a sun shadow on the surface of the sea that can easily be mistaken for an atoll. There are thousands of these clouds. Take your pick which could be an atoll or an illusion.:(

[quoteapparently photobucket have changed their terms so linking photo's to 3rd party sites is restricted to paid subscribers. ][/quote]

Thanks for that info, Scroogee.
Cent :ok:

Fred Noonan's departure from Pan Am was rumored to be due to alcohol and some, but not all of the cites on this page seem to confirm the issue:

https://earharttruth.wordpress.com/2...he-true-story/

Here's a version of the ending of Noonan's career at Pan Am based largely on a 1972 interview in the PAA archives of fellow crewmembers Victor Wright and Harry Canaday:

https://earharttruth.wordpress.com/2...he-true-story/

Decades later there were similar rumors at Pan Am about the father of the skipper of the ill-fated oil tanker Exxon Valdez. :(

Also, Paul Mantz was originally planned to be the other crewmember on the fatal Pacific crossing according to some accounts but bailed out of the deal after Earhart's ground loop on takeoff in Hawaii on the earlier Pacific crossing attempt.

Paul Mantz had his own alcohol issues as cited in coverage of his fatal crash while filming a stunt for The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).

The idea of a female aviator setting records for speed and distance in flight has been explored many times in the eight decades since the Earhart-Noonan disappearance by women like Brooke Knapp, Terri Jones and Jeana Yeager.

Yes, I agree, it is easy to imagine this - it is however much, much harder to imagine that after failing to locate Howland Island they mysteriously navigated to Gilbert Islands. Noonan was a very good navigator and such a miss by almost 1000 km makes no sense at all. Further it makes no sense since Amelia's voice was clearly heard in the vicinity (based on the radio technology at the time) of Howland island with minutes of aviation fuel to spare (her panicky voice at the time). She is even heard saying very loudly - we must be on you but can not see you. So assuming, based on preponderance of evidence that at 7:42 they were within 100 nm from Howland Island and the fuel was supposed to last another ~30 minutes - how did they get to Gilbert Islands almost 4 hours flight time away? Makes absolutely no sense.

Always wondered why Amelia and Fred didnt go for the 'offset method', as used successfully by Chichester. Go for a point well south and with chronometer and sextant, pick up the north -south/appropriate angle sun line, get an accurate drift as possible and track for the target not so far away. When they missed / couldnt spot Howland /or were not even in visual distance...they had no idea..north or south of ??
Amelia did talk if running on a line ..337-157 was it?..but to and fro where.

There were purportedly other issues, HF freq no. didnt match aerial length no.
Time zones differed, putting call and listen out times to be mismatched.
Batteries for the radio beacon on Howland had been left on overnight and were flat by the morning....
Was the Chronometer off, did the sextant get dropped and damaged...?
And after the greatest aerial search ever.....narry a trace.
So where are you Amelia (and Fred).?

I think it is a poor choice of words to think of her in terms stupid/smart. She clearly did not do a very smart thing when she overruled her navigator and chose to turn in the wrong direction when approaching Africa - contrary to Fred's advice. It is impossible to miss Africa so it did not have and bad consequences. This mishap is well documented and almost made Fred walk away from this endeavor. He must have realized that he is there only for a ride and his work may not be taken seriously. This could be what happened at the end (as suggested by some historian, not my invention) - his precise navigation instructions were disregarded around Howland Island and this time there was no way out.