Amelia Earhart - Case Closed

Fred Noonan & Amelia Earhart

I have just finished "Amelia Earhart - Case Closed" by Mike and Marjie Markowski, the revised edition of the original work of Walter Roessler and Leo Gomez.

"Case Closed" investigates the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan off Howland Island in July 1937.  However, unlike many other tomes that focus on Amelia's many aviation achievements, this book seeks to focus on the events that led up and contributed to that fateful day.

When we think of Amelia Earhart we tend to visualise a young daring girl setting off on a grand adventure, and who vanished off the face of the earth.  However, the truth is rarely as fanciful; and "Case Closed" seeks to dispel some of the myths surrounding this extraordinary woman and her exploits.

"Case Closed" leads us through the life and aviation achievements of Amelia - and touches briefly upon those of her predecessors.  We also learn of the personalities of Amelia and those surrounding her - and how these may have impacted upon decisions later made concerning her final flight. And we also learn that a series of events - each on its own probably not significant - together resulted in tragic consequences.

The authors look at a number of important issues that ultimately impacted on the final flight.  We learn of:

• Amelia's choice of plane in the Lockheed Electra - most of her other ventures were in the single-engine Vega;
• Amelia's crash on 20th March 1937 on her first attempt - an incident which resulted in damage to her Lockheed Electra and constant mechanical problems;
• the non-participation of half her original crew in the second attempt - both Paul Mantz and Harry Manning decided not to accompany Amelia and Fred;
• the decision to travel west-east rather than the usual east-west route;
• adverse weather conditions affecting the Electra, navigation and pilot;
• the decision not to take all necessary forms of communication on the final leg, whilst communication between both navigator and pilot was most basic;
• "jet lag" and fatigue affecting both Fred and Amelia which resulted in both experiencing navigational errors and poor decision-making

What "Case Closed" confirms is that Amelia and Fred did not survive the attempt and vanished, somewhere near Howland Island, on the final leg of their journey. What I appreciated in this work was the efforts of the authors to offer a critical assessment of events leading up to that fateful day and to offer constructive analysis rather than look at events through rose-coloured glasses.

But let there be no mistake - in no way do the authors disparage the character and achievements of Amelia and Fred; rather they seek to show that both were human with all the frailties of humanity.  Their disappearance was a tragedy and loss to the world of aviation.  

Recent news articles on Amelia Earhart that have been featured on Women of History:

• Amelia Earhart - Lost Evidence?
• Results of Amelia Earhart Search
• More on Amelia Earhart Search
• Amelia Earhart - New Evidence
• DNA Inconclusive In Search For Amelia Earhart
• Bone Key To Earhart Mystery
• Amelia Earhart Found??

I cannot but recommend "Amelia Earhart - Case Closed" for those who are keen to discover more about Amelia and Fred's last journey.

Amelia Earhart - Lost Evidence?

From CNN:

CNN reported Sunday that a 1937 photo may be key in finding, with certainty, the final resting place of Earhart as well as her navigator Fred Noonan, and their Lockheed Electra plane – which all disappeared famously during a doomed attempt at an around-the-world flight in 1937.

Eric Bevington, one of the officers who first set out to find her in 1937, wrote a letter to the magazine’s editor more than 50 years after the first search for Earhart. He still was alive, living in the South of England, and said he had saved his old documents from the inaugural expedition.

In the endless search of historical documents, Gillespie said the group uncovered records that showed a British man named Gerald Gallagher found human bones, a piece of a man’s shoe, a piece of woman’s shoe and a box for a sextant, which is a navigational device, on Gardner Island in 1940. Suspecting it was Earhart, Gillespie said the remains were examined by a British colonial service doctor named David Hoodless who dispelled the theory saying the bones belonged to a stocky male, and the sextant was a mariner’s sextant, not aeronautical.

See also:

CNN - 75 Years Later, The Mystery of Amealia Earhart Solved?

Women of History - Results of Amelia Earhart Search

Results of Amelia Earhart Search

Further to my blog post on More On Ameilia Earhart Search, comes this from Heritage Daily:

Earhart, who was the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932, was en route to Howland Island on the 2^nd July 1937 when the Electra 10E aircraft she and Noonan were in disappeared. Many experts believe that a navigational error which led to the pair running out of fuel over the sea was the cause of their disappearance.

Though disappointed by initial findings the group leading the project, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIHGAR), still believe that Earhart and her navigator Noonan crashed onto a reef off the Kiribati atoll Nikumaroro, in the Pacific Ocean and died soon after.

More on Amelia Earhart Search

Following on from my blog post on Amelia Earhart - New Evidence, comes this article from Discovery News:

Components of Amelia Earhart's plane might have floated for weeks in the waters of an uninhabited island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, according to new analysis of a photograph taken three months after the disappearance of the glamorous aviator on July 2, 1937, during a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.

Shot by British Colonial Service officer Eric R. Bevington in October 1937, during an expedition to assess the suitability for future settlement and colonization of Nikumaroro, a deserted island between Hawaii and Australia, the grainy photo has prompted a new expedition to find pieces of Earhart's long-lost Lockheed Electra aircraft.

"We will depart Honolulu on July 3rd aboard the University of Hawaii oceanographic research ship R/V Ka Imikai-O-Kanaloa. In about eight days we should get to Nikumaroro, where we will carry out a deep-water search for the wreckage," Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) , told Discovery News.

See also this from the Bunsen Burner

Exactly 75 years after Amelia Earhart departed on her final flight before disappearing somewhere over the Pacific, an expedition team is searching for the wreckage of her plane using new methods and pursuing new hypotheses.

Amelia Earhart, born in Kansas in 1897, is famous for being the first woman to complete a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. She also held a number of aviation speed records and played a major part in the formation of a professional women’s aviation group called the ninety-nines.On July 2 1937, near the end of a journey around the globe roughly following the equator, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, departed from Papua, New Guinea. They were bound for Howland Island in their Lockheed Model 10 Electra aircraft. They were never seen again and no trace of the airplane has since been found.

Amelia Earhart - New Evidence

From The Christian Science Monitor:

For decades, pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart was said to have “disappeared” over the Pacific on her quest to circle the globe along a 29,000-mile equatorial route.

Now, new information gives a clearer picture of what happened 75 years ago to Ms. Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, where they came down and how they likely survived – for a while, at least – as castaways on a remote island, catching rainwater and eating fish, shellfish, and turtles to survive.

The tale hints at lost opportunities to locate and rescue the pair in the first crucial days after they went down, vital information dismissed as inconsequential or a hoax, the failure to connect important dots regarding physical evidence.

See also:

DNA Inconclusive In Search For Amelia Earhart

Bone Key To Earhart Mystery

Amelia Earhart Found ???

Aviatrix Bessie Coleman

From DoD Live:

A young woman from rural east Texas, who grew up in a hardscrabble existence as one of 13 children born to poor sharecropper parents, became an unlikely choice to pave the way for future African-American accomplishments in aviation and the U.S. Air Force.

Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman would go on to be the first female pilot of African-American descent, but more importantly would later influence the accomplishments of others who would continue the evolution of African-American involvement in aviation throughout the 20th century.

William J. Powell, a lieutenant serving in an all-black unit during World War I, penned in his 1934 book, “Black Wings,” “Because of Bessie Coleman, we have overcome that which was much worse than a racial barrier. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream.”

South Sudan's First Female Pilot

From the Sudan Tribune:

She is shy and occasionally breaks down when asked to narrate her ordeal. And yet Aluel James Bol has just become the first female pilot in the history of the newly created Republic of South Sudan.

A US-trained pilot, Aleul, who previously worked with Ethiopia Airlines before taking up an advisory role within the ministry of transport and roads, lauded the South Sudan government for the financial support it provided for completion of her studies.

Speaking at a press conference convened in Juba, the South Sudan capital, Aluel specifically thanked the ministry of gender, social welfare and religious affairs for awarding a bursary, which enabled her complete studies.

American WASPS

From Utah News:

Within months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. Army Air Force, faced with an acute shortage of male pilots, decided to use women in domestic aviation to relieve their male counterparts for combat.

This was a first for the military. They knew little about women’s adaptability, attitudes, strength or psychological bearings. So they turned to world-renowned pilot Jacqueline Cochran, who created in-country ferrying and training programs including aerial navigation, target towing, assimilated bombing missions and conveyance.

Cochran had broken international speed and altitude records. President of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots, she was a member of the Wings for Britain, delivered military aircraft from America to England and became the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic.

Actively recruited, 25,000 young women stepped forward to volunteer, and about 1,800 were accepted into the program. Learning to fly “the Army way,” 1,074 graduated into the Women Air Force Service Pilots, or WASPS.