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boston bean

(36,221 posts)
Sun Jun 3, 2012, 11:03 AM Jun 2012

Amelia Earhart: New evidence tells of her last days on a Pacific atoll

(TIGHAR), a non-profit foundation promoting aviation archaeology and historic aircraft preservation, reported new details Friday leading researchers to this conclusion: Earhart and Noonan, low on fuel and unable to find their next scheduled stopping point – Howland Island – radioed their position, then landed on a reef at uninhabited Gardner Island, a small coral atoll now known as Nikumaroro Island.

Using what fuel remained to turn up the engines to recharge the batteries, they continued to radio distress signals for several days until Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed Electra aircraft was swept off the reef by rising tides and surf. Using equipment not available in 1937 – digitized information management systems, antenna modeling software, and radio wave propagation analysis programs, TIGHAR concluded that 57 of the 120 signals reported at the time are credible, triangulating Earhart’s position to have been Nikumaroro Island.

"Amelia Earhart did not simply vanish on July 2, 1937,” Richard Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, told Discovery News. “Radio distress calls believed to have been sent from the missing plane dominated the headlines and drove much of the US Coast Guard and Navy search.”

"When the search failed, all of the reported post-loss radio signals were categorically dismissed as bogus and have been largely ignored ever since," Mr. Gillespie said. But the results of the study, he said, “suggest that the aircraft was on land and on its wheels for several days following the disappearance.”


http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0602/Amelia-Earhart-New-evidence-tells-of-her-last-days-on-a-Pacific-atoll-video
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Amelia Earhart: New evidence tells of her last days on a Pacific atoll (Original Post) boston bean Jun 2012 OP
I've been following this story Texasgal Jun 2012 #1
i read it on cnn, also. and have listened over the years. seabeyond Jun 2012 #2
I think we all like a mystery! Texasgal Jun 2012 #3
mystery makes it so much cooler because she was such a badass!!! seabeyond Jun 2012 #5
I've been captivated with this story since a very little girl--something my late Mother fostered... hlthe2b Jun 2012 #4
I wonder why the radio signals were dismissed? dana_b Jun 2012 #6
This has been known for some time. laconicsax Jun 2012 #7
Fascinating stuff and I'm glad it's being revisited. MerryBlooms Jun 2012 #8
 

seabeyond

(110,159 posts)
2. i read it on cnn, also. and have listened over the years.
Sun Jun 3, 2012, 12:31 PM
Jun 2012

mine is more our obsessiveness in finding a long lost answer. but it is interesting.

Texasgal

(17,045 posts)
3. I think we all like a mystery!
Sun Jun 3, 2012, 12:46 PM
Jun 2012

The story and the mystery makes it so much cooler because she was such a badass!!!

hlthe2b

(102,297 posts)
4. I've been captivated with this story since a very little girl--something my late Mother fostered...
Sun Jun 3, 2012, 01:39 PM
Jun 2012

Whenever anything new comes up, I always get a chance to remember fond memories of discussions with my Mom over this.

I'll be watching for more news--intently.

dana_b

(11,546 posts)
6. I wonder why the radio signals were dismissed?
Sun Jun 3, 2012, 04:09 PM
Jun 2012

Kind of weird. Hopefully we will get more info by the end of summer. "In July, TIGHAR researchers will return to the area where Earhart and Noonan are thought to have spent their last days, using submersibles to try and detect the famous aircraft they believe to have been swept off a Pacific reef in 1937".

 

laconicsax

(14,860 posts)
7. This has been known for some time.
Sun Jun 3, 2012, 08:23 PM
Jun 2012
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-resting-place.html

They found a partial skeleton belonging to a white female, "a woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan." When did this find occur?

1940, as in 72 years ago.

The real mystery is how the disappearance was considered "unsolved" for all this time.
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