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15 Feb ’12
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This story has always intrigued me, wonder why it took so long to identify it if they found it back in 1991,
A fragment of Amelia Earhart's lost aircraft has been identified to a high degree of certainty for the first time ever since her plane vanished over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.
New research strongly suggests that a piece of aluminum aircraft debris recovered in 1991 from Nikumaroro, an uninhabited atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, does belong to Earhart’s twin-engined Lockheed Electra.
According to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the last, fateful flight taken by Earhart 77 years ago, the aluminum sheet is a patch of metal installed on the Electra during the aviator’s eight-day stay in Miami, which was the fourth stop on her attempt to circumnavigate the globe.
The patch replaced a navigational window: A Miami Herald photo shows the Electra departing for San Juan, Puerto Rico on the morning of Tuesday, June 1, 1937 with a shiny patch of metal where the window had been.
“The Miami Patch was an expedient field repair," Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, told Discovery News. "Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual."
TIGHAR researchers went to Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kans., and compared the dimensions and features of the Artifact 2-2-V-1, as the metal sheet found on Nikumaroro was called, with the structural components of a Lockheed Electra being restored to airworthy condition.
The rivet pattern and other features on the 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long Nikumaroro artifact matched the patch and lined up with the structural components of the Lockheed Electra. TIGHAR detailed the finding in a report on its website.
“This is the first time an artifact found on Nikumaroro has been shown to have a direct link to Amelia Earhart,” Gillespie said.
The breakthrough would prove that, contrary to what was generally believed, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not crash in the Pacific Ocean, running out of fuel somewhere near their target destination of Howland Island.
Instead, they made a forced landing on Nikumaroro' smooth, flat coral reef. The two became castaways and eventually died on the atoll, which is some 350 miles southeast of Howland Island.
18 Feb ’12
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I remember reading about this fragment years ago, but it seemed like Mr. Gillespie didn't have his ducks in a row before going public. That Miami photograph really makes this fragment a plausible part of the story. It makes me wonder if the patch began to fail and caused the plane's fuel economy to drop. Add that to the fact that Earhart had obvious radio problems, had new, unfamiliar direction finding equipment, and she had navigation problems in the past-she had mistakenly landed in Ireland instead of France, and the wrong airport in Miami-she may have been circling Nikumaroro instead of Howland Island .
I like that Gillespie includes a null hypothesis for finding the fragment. The only problem is that area of the south Pacific saw a lot of action during WWII. I wonder how many hundreds of planes flew over Nikumaroro, or how many crashed in the seas around the atoll. A piece of wreckage washing up and being found 50 years later wouldn't be that farfetched.
I've always been interested in aviation history, and I remember talking at length with my dad about all the theories about what happened to Earhart.
Cool article.
15 Feb ’12
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I remember watching this as a kid, man I loved that show
15 Feb ’12
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Came across this on Reddit
Hey Reddit,
I'm actually a grandson of Elgen Long, long time researcher of Amelia Earhart and also known to be the "father" of the crash and sink theory. I've been exposed to the argument over this piece of evidence for fragment 2-2-V-1 for many years.
There's a big problem with the argument that it belongs to Earhart's plane. One of the original engineers on the Lockheed 10, Edward Werner, was actually part of a research panel that determined in 1992 there was no way it could have come from Earhart's plane. This was detailed in many press articles, including the LA Times andOakland Tribune. He was also quoted in the original press release that it "was ridiculous" to think it came from Earhart's plane and he agreed with the panel completely.
Here's why fragment 2-2-V-1 does not have a high chance of belonging to Amelia Earhart: the rivets perfectly matched a PBY Catalina! It's a plane that was widely used in the Pacific during WWII. The odds of those same rivets matching a Lockheed plane are very slim. I'm a little concerned that so much excitement is being generated about this piece when the PBY match has not yet been successfully refuted.
There's another problem with the "custom modification" reason posted in this Wired article: modifications to Earhart's plane were well documented. At that time most modifications had to be submitted to the FAA for approval, and even fixes were written down. There's also a 20-page report that outlines Earhart's [crash in Hawaii](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart#1937_world_flight) during her first world trip attempt, and no where does it mention a "custom modification" like 2-2-V-1. (I'll see if I can dig up the PDF) So the perfect match with the PBY Catalina still remains the best candidate of origin.
I'm sure many are excited to see some revival of the search for Earhart, and I think there's a lot of positive in TIGHAR continuing their search. However, there are good reasons to remain doubtful that this is some sort of smoking gun.
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