Landfall? (Part Two)

CCXLI

The idea that Amelia and Fred both survived their immediate disappearance is not new.  Every theory that has Earhart and Noonan reaching landfall has one common conclusion --- that they didn’t die well.  

There are dozens of theories and versions of theories, and people have spent millions of dollars trying to demystify the end of Amelia Earhart’s life. Indeed, the facts surrounding her death are far more interesting to most people than anything she actually accomplished while alive. Entire books have been written on the subject, and scholarly (and not-so-scholarly) debate rages on. This blog cannot possibly discuss every theory that has been put forth regarding Amelia Earhart’s end, but will try to give a synopsis of the most prevalent beliefs currently in vogue:

Signals --- The “signals theory” arose during the search-and-rescue phase of the story, when ham radio operators claimed to have picked up calls for help from the downed Electra, either in voice or in code, and mostly indecipherable.  This theory has never been disproven, but issues exist around it. For one, to send any kind of signal, Amelia needed to run the Electra’s engines, and to do that she would have had to have had fuel. For another, there are inconsistencies in the nature of the signals reported. Some proponents of this theory claim that Morse Code was received --- KHAQQ SOS --- while others claim garbled voice calls were received. Yet the U.S. Navy vessels that were in the area reported receiving nothing. It is most likely that what the amateur radio buffs were hearing were U.S. Navy signals being broadcast to the Electra, not signals from the Electra.

Proponents of the signals theory argue that the Navy search was incomplete and inconclusive, and that landing parties were not put ashore at likely (and unlikely) landfalls. Given that the Navy covered more than a quarter-million square miles of ocean and did go ashore at several places, and that no Navy would have the manpower to search every likely-sized islet in the ocean, the signals theory remains viable, and if true means that Earhart and Noonan died as castaways.

Rescue --- Assuming that A.E. and Fred Noonan survived their forced landing at sea, one school of Earhartologists believes that they were rescued by Japanese fishermen who took them to local Japanese authorities and that they died while under Japanese care (if they were injured) or while in Japanese custody (if they were uninjured). This theory of course requires that Japanese fishermen were in the stormy vicinity of the stricken plane. Critics of this theory point out that nobody has ever come forward with a “rescue” story; however, it is possible that Earhart’s rescuers later died in the Second World War.

 

Gardner Island --- Another school, spearheaded by TIGHAR, believes that Earhart flew away south on her Line Of Position, eventually finding Gardner Island (Nikumaroro) in the Phoenix Islands (today part of Kiribati, but then a British dependency) where she crash-landed. The distance from Howland to Gardner is about 450 miles.

Items found by TIGHAR investigators at the presumptive castaway’s camp on Nikumaroro include these, all commonly available in the United States in the 1930s. None of the items have been linked to Earhart

Badly injured, she and Fred are speculated to have met a gruesome end, devoured by the coconut crabs that infest the tiny island.

Most people are horrified by coconut crabs. They are the world’s largest crustaceans. They can be more than a yard across and weigh almost ten pounds. They eat anything, including coconuts, small animals, other coconut crabs, and injured humans. They are aggressive, intelligent, and good climbers. In Florida, some people keep them as pets

TIGHAR claims to have found a piece of wreckage that matches part of the Electra, and has claimed to find personal items such as fragments of a woman’s compact, a water bottle, and even a finger bone upon which DNA tests were inconclusive; but many others remain unconvinced that these items have anything to do with Amelia Earhart. 

Buka Island --- According to this theory, Earhart and Noonan, unable to find Howland Island, turned back for Lae and, out of fuel, crashed into the sea just off Buka Island, a small spot of land belonging to Papua-New Guinea. Proponents of the “Buka Island theory” claim that a wrecked plane lying just off Buka is the missing Electra.

In terms of its specifics, the “Buka Island theory” is most unlikely. To return to Lae, Earhart would have had to have had enough fuel on board to retrace her nearly twenty hour flight from Lae; even with jerry cans, the ship could not have doubled its fuel capacity, nor for that matter, flown while so incredibly overloaded. Anyone on the ground at Lae would have remarked on such a massive fuel reserve being put aboard, as opposed to a dozen extra gas cans. The Electra would have been a flying bomb if the “Buka Island theory” had any validity and that would have caused comment even before the disappearance.

World War II-era jerry cans

Additionally, Amelia, who had already been awake for 24 hours and at the controls for 20, would have had to stay awake another 20 hours to have any hope of landing at Lae. Staying awake for more than 40 hours while flying a plane is, quite flatly, impossible. One has to wonder if she didn’t doze off at the yokes and put the plane into an irrecoverable dive as she slept.

 

The general idea that Earhart may have turned to find another landing place is far from impossible, but it could not have been Buka.

 

Mili Atoll --- This theory is very much like the “Gardner Island theory” in that it argues that Earhart made landfall on a remote Pacific island. Mili Atoll, the second largest atoll in the Marshall Islands, lies about 800 miles from Howland, and it is doubtful that Amelia Earhart had the fuel --- or the stamina --- to fly even a fraction of that distance after 20 hours at the controls. Mili however, does lie northward on the Line Of Position established by Noonan, as Gardner lies southward.

According to the Earhartologists that subscribe to this theory, the Electra crash-landed on the reef at Mili, and Earhart and Noonan were rescued by Marshallese who hid them unsuccessfully from the Japanese. 

The Marshallese government had enough faith in this theory to issue a set of commemorative stamps in Earhart’s honor.  

Amelia’s disappearance was front page news around the nation and the world for over two weeks, continually stoked by George Putnam’s publicity machine. George himself was certain that “A.E. will pull through” until early August. After the U.S. Navy called off its search on Day 17, George paid for private ships, aircraft and spotters to continue hunting for his wife for another two weeks. It made his already heavy debt load far heavier, but George was inconsolable and did not care