The search for Amelia Earhart's lonely landfall

A group seeking to solve the mystery of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart's final flight is about to reach its destination, reports JOHN YELD.

An expedition from Los Angeles will arrive at the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro next week in another attempt to solve a mystery that has held the imagination of aviation enthusiasts for more than 60 years.

The disappearance of pioneering pilot Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan during their round-the-world flight attempt in 1937 sparked the most extensive air and sea search in United States military history. No trace was found of the missing flyers and attempts since have not come up with an answer to the puzzle.

Fanciful suggestions, conspiracy theories and outright hoaxes about their disappearance abounded. Many have settled for the simplest, if least exciting, explanation: that Earhart and Noonan drowned when their plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea close to Howland Island in the mid-Pacific.

But today the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar) launches its fourth expedition in an attempt to prove an entirely different scenario.

Tighar, a United States-based, non-profit aviation archaeological foundation, believes that America's darling of the skies landed safely on the atoll of Gardner Island, today known as Nikumaroro and part of the Republic of Kiribati, and survived as a castaway before finally perishing.

Since inaugurating its Earhart Project in 1988, the group has collected a substantial amount of evidence to back this hypothesis.

And the group hopes that its month-long Niku IIII expedition, which leaves Los Angeles today, will provide the final proof.

America's First Lady of the Air captivated the world during the 1920s and 30s. In 1932, she was feted after a solo flight across the Atlantic and in 1937, just short of her 40th birthday, Earhart was ready for her greatest challenge: to become the first woman to fly around the world. She chose a twin-engined Lockheed Model 10E Special Electra, equipped with extra fuel tanks, and selected Fred Noonan - the best in the business - as her navigator.

After a major mishap at the start of the second leg in Honolulu in March she set off in the rebuilt Electra from Oakland, California, on May 20, 1937.

Her route took her east across the United States to Miami, down the northeastern coast of South America, across the Atlantic, Africa and the Red and Arabian Seas to India, then via South-east Asia to Darwin in Australia and finally to Lae, New Guinea, which she reached on June 29.

This left her 11,000km to go over the Pacific.

In a letter home, she wrote: "Please know I am quite aware of the hazards ... Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."

The next leg was to tiny Howland Island, 4100km away and less than 1.6km long.

The US coastguard cutter Itasca was stationed just offshore to act as a radio contact and to supply fuel.

At 12.30 pm local time on July 2, the Electra lifted off from Lae into overcast skies, making it impossible for Noonan to make celestial observations - his primary means of navigation. At 7.42 am on July 3, increasingly anxious radio operators on the Itasca logged this transmission: "KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you but cannot see you, but gas is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio; we are flying at altitude 1000 feet ... one-half hour fuel and no landfall."

Despite continuous efforts, they were unable to establish voice contact with Earhart.

Then, at 8.44 am, she reported: "We are on line of position 157-337. Will repeat this message. We are running north and south."

It was the last contact.

The US Navy dispatched the battleship USS Colorado to search the "157-337" navigational line running southeast from Howland Island.

Radio signals believed to be from Earhart's missing aircraft were reportedly heard as the warship steamed at top speed to the area. Directional bearings taken on some signals suggested they originated from the Phoenix group of islands, about 560km south-east of Howland.

This group includes Gardner Island, a tiny, classically shaped atoll. At the time, it was part of the British-administered Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony and officially uninhabited. However, Navy pilots from the Colorado reported "signs of recent habitation", although there was no response when they repeatedly "buzzed" the island. They also noted the 1929 wreck of the tramp steamer SS Norwich City, lying on the reef-flat at the northwest end of the island.

Tighar has concentrated on Gardner Island. It pointed out that Earhart's plane had 1100 US gallons (4163 litres) of fuel aboard when leaving New Guinea, giving enough for three hours' flying after her last recorded radio signal - enough to reach Gardner.

In late 1938, more than a year after Earhart's disappearance, the island was colonised with settlers from the then Gilbert Islands (although it was abandoned in 1963).

And according to island folklore, the first work party ashore in 1938 found the bones of a white man and woman.

Tighar's researchers have made further tantalising discoveries. In 1991 they found pieces of what appeared to be a shoe identical to those worn by Earhart on her final flight. They also recovered artefacts including aircraft parts, some of which appear to be consistent with Earhart's Electra.

Then, in 1997, Peter McQuarrie discovered 16 pieces of official British colonial correspondence, marked "strictly secret", in the national archives of the Republic of Kiribati which confirmed the legend of the bones.

These documents prove that human bones, the sole of a woman's shoe, a Benedictine bottle, a campfire and other artefacts including a sextant box with two numbers on it and an inverted eyepiece (suggesting it had been adapted for aeronautical use) were indeed found on the island in 1940. In 1941, the items were sent to the Western Pacific High Commission in Suva for examination.

Although the bones are now missing, they were examined at the time by two doctors, one of whom made detailed notes which still exist. The group commissioned two forensic skeletal biologists, Karen Burns and Richard Jantz, to analyse these notes, and both concluded that the bones fitted Earhart's stature.

Most recently, the group obtained a superb satellite image of Nikumaroro, a careful study of which has confirmed the presence of an "anomaly" which Tighar believes could be wreckage from Earhart's plane.

"There is nothing about the anomaly that indicates that it is aircraft wreckage, but it also seems very unlikely it is SS Norwich City wreckage, because all the shipwreck debris is scattered to the east and southeast of the wreck," says Tighar director Ric Gillespie.



Tighar's hypothesis is that Earhart and Noonan did crash-land on Gardner and survived for a time before succumbing. This is what Tighar hopes its Niku IIII expedition will prove.

But there has been another twist.

Last month Tighar reported learning that a deep-sea tug had illegally investigated its widely publicised "anomaly" and recovered a slab of apparent shipwreck debris.

"This incident in no way alters Tighar's expedition plan, but it does point up the need for greater public awareness and respect for legitimate archaeological endeavours."

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