New Guinea - Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan, en route to Howland Island, 2 July 1937

[nhmemorymaker]

The only thing is, I'm surprised no parts of the plane have ever washed ashore or have surfaced.

@Richard ... Were their any suspected pieces ever come ashore.

 

[Richard]

@Richard ... Were their any suspected pieces ever come ashore.

Not that I know of.

The Electra contained extra fuel tanks, which were running low on fuel by her estimated time of arrival (ETA) at Howland Island. Those tanks being close to empty of fuel would have provided much buoyancy to the plane in the water.

There is almost no doubt that the plane went down as a direct result of the low fuel, and their failure to find Howland. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they flew the plane until the engines quit.

All long range pilots and navigators monitor their fuel status very closely and take necessary steps to seek alternate emergency landing sites.

At a given point, the aviator has to make a decision and carry out a plan. In this case, I would think they decided to seek another island or lagoon to set down on before fuel was exhausted.

A major problem was Amelia's poor communication skills. She should have been broadcasting in the blind her positions, headings, airspeed and intentions.

 

[Richard]

There are not many close islands east of Howland Island.

Amelia and Fred had passed by or over the Gilbert's on their way to Howland, so a likely scenario for them when unsuccessful in finding Howland or the USCG cutter Itasca, would have been to turn to the west and seek an alternate spot to land or ditch in friendly (not Japanese held) territory.

If, for some reason, they were actually north of Howland at ETA- turning to the west would have brought them into the Marshall Islands. These were part of a larger group of Pacific islands previously owned by Germany, which were "Mandated" by the League of Nations after WW I and assigned to Japan to administer.

By 1937, Japan considered them to be Japanese owned territory and had begun to fortify them, building runways, radio stations, gun emplacements, ammunition dumps, docks, troop quarters, food storage buildings, water cisterns, etc.

The Imperial Japanese Army and Navy , based on Saipan, ran the area with an iron fist and arrested or detained anyone caught "trespassing".

It is strongly believed by some that Amelia and Fred survived a landing or ditching and were captured by the Japanese.

 

[Richard]

Here is a very recent video claiming that pieces of Amelia's plane may have been filmed on the ocean floor near a Pacific Island.

I would take the video's conclusions with a few grains of salt, since there have been so many others over the years. But the video does contain a lot of very interesting images of Amelia, Fred, and their plane.

Note that many images used in the video, including the one at the start, are NOT of the Lockheed Electra.

LINK: