For Want of a Nail (Part Four)

CCXXXIX

The conventional wisdom is that Amelia Earhart ditched the Lockheed Electra 10E Special at sea. In 1937, and for decades thereafter, ditching was a procedure that pilots couldn’t really practice. Without simulators, pilots could only throttle back, come in low, and skim the surface of the ocean without actually touching it.  Prior to computerization, ditching was literally a last-ditch attempt to bring a stricken plane to earth (or, more correctly, water) in the hope that it would float for some time, allowing for rescue. It was an off chance, but it was better than simply flying around until a plane fell out of the sky. 

The Dos and Don’ts of modern ditching procedures

By far the most famous ditching took place on January 15, 2009, when US Airways Flight 1549, leaving New York’s LaGuardia Airport, suffered a birdstrike by a flock of Canada Geese, losing thrust in both jet engines just three minutes into the flight. The fully-fueled and passengered aircraft became, in all respects, a glider. There were 155 passengers and crew aboard the Airbus 320-214 when the plane, piloted by Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, put down intact into the North (Hudson) River with no serious injuries.

“The Miracle on the Hudson”: Passengers wait to be evacuated by nearby First Responders after Flight 1549 is forced down. It was only 19*F. that day, and most injuries were due to exposure. Everyone survived. The Airbus 320-214 model is now familiarly known as “Sully’s Ark” by commercial pilots

It was described as “the most successful ditching in aviation history.” Captain Sullenberger was 57 at the time, an Air Force Academy graduate, a former Air Force pilot, and a man with 19,663 flight hours to his credit, including 4,765 in that type of aircraft. He also had thousands of hours in simulators.

Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger

 

Amelia Earhart had, in terms of flight and training hours, nothing that compared to Captain Sullenberger; if she ditched at all she was ditching not in the relatively calm waters of an estuary, but in the open ocean; the modern Airbus is made of high-impact composite materials, while the Electra, though designed by the soon-to-be legendary Kelly Johnson, was made of thin duralumin; help, in the form of First Responders, was alongside the floating Airbus within three minutes, but nobody knew where the Electra was; and the Airbus had full fuel tanks. Fuel being lighter than water, it helped the plane to float. Earhart’s empty tanks provided no such positive floatation. Lockheed assured George Putnam that the Electra could float for up to 12 hours in a calm sea, but nobody knew if the sea was calm in Earhart’s vicinity; and she was unpracticed in ditching. 

During the Second World War many badly battle damaged Allied aircraft like this B-17 limped homeward over the European mainland to the relative safety of the English Channel, where they ditched and hoped for a quick rescue by Royal Navy patrol craft. Crewmen died and planes broke up, but the chance of rescue in the 20 mile wide Channel was a far better bet than a rescue in the boundless Pacific

In August of 1967, an Electra lost power to both engines just off the Massachusetts coast. The plane was able to successfully ditch in the relatively calm summer waters of the Atlantic, and the passengers were taken off by nearby sailboats and power boats. The plane itself sank in eight minutes, going down by the head, pulled under by the weight of its big radial engines. Everyone survived. But, as the Itasca would soon discover and the U.S.S. Swan would confirm, the area where Earhart and Noonan likely came down was roiled by storm, thunder and lightning bad enough to turn a Catalina PBY back in its tracks and have the Swan delay entering the area for a day. The odds are that the Electra broke up and sank on impact or flooded in the angry sea, taking Earhart and Noonan to their watery graves.