It
appears that there is still some buzz left in the old bird even after
75 years. Most of us baby boomers recall that she was a hero to our
parents and our own memories are borrowed from them. The truth is
that in the time and place, she was a celebrity and she sold
newspapers. Thus there is a serious echo out there to capture and
amplify.
In
the event, it looks like we are going to have a serious run at
locating evidence. I think that the evidence to hand is pretty
compelling but confirmation is tricky. Good luck and bon voyage.
Amelia deserves it and this brief turn through the spotlight one more
time.
I
think though, that I will skip the book.
$2.2 million
expedition to find wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s plane begins in
Hawaii
View Photo Gallery
— Amelia Earhart: The search continues: Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken interest in one of the biggest
unsolved mysteries of the 20th century: the disappearance of Amelia
Earhart. This year, the National Portrait Gallery will devote an
exhibition to the aviatrix.
By Associated
Press, Updated: Tuesday, July 3, 12:19 AM
HONOLULU — A $2.2
million expedition is hoping to finally solve one of America’s most
enduring mysteries: What exactly happened to famed aviator Amelia
Earhart when she went missing over the South Pacific 75 years ago?
A group of scientists,
historians and salvagers think they have a good idea, and are
trekking from Honolulu to a remote island in the Pacific nation of
Kiribati starting Tuesday in hopes of finding wreckage of Earhart’s
Lockheed Electra plane in nearby waters.
Their working theory
is that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed on a reef near
the Kiribati atoll of Nikumaroro, then survived a short time.
“Everything has
pointed to the airplane having gone over the edge of that reef in a
particular spot and the wreckage ought to be right down there,”
said Ric Gillespie, the founder and executive director of The
International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, the group leading
the search.
“We’re going to
search where it — in quotes — should be,” he said. “And maybe
it’s there, maybe it’s not. And there’s no way to know unless
you go and look.”
Previous visits to the
island have recovered artifacts that could have belonged to Earhart
and Noonan, and experts say an October 1937 photo of the shoreline of
the island could include a blurry image of the strut and wheel of a
Lockheed Electra landing gear.
“That was the icing
on the cake,” said Gillespie, who said the picture added to 24
years of evidence gathering used to form the group’s working
theory.
The photo was enough
for the U.S. State Department to hold an event to give encouragement
to the privately funded expedition, and enough for the Kiribati
government to sign a contract with the group to work together if
anything is found, Gillespie said.
But the hunt using
nearly 30,000 pounds of specialized underwater equipment is just a
sophisticated way to try to prove a hunch that could be flat wrong,
or not provable if the plane simply floated too far or broke up into
tiny, undetectable pieces.
A separate group
working under a different theory plans its third voyage later this
year near Howland Island.
Earhart and Noonan
were flying from New Guinea to Howland Island when they went missing
July 2, 1937, during Earhart’s bid to become the first woman to
circumnavigate the globe.
Gillespie’s group
raised enough funds to embark on the nearly monthlong voyage through
individual and corporate donors, including funds from Discovery,
which plans to document the trip and air it on cable TV in August,
and $750,000 worth of free shipping from FedEx of the underwater
science gear, Gillespie said.
Still, the trip is
nearly a half-million dollars short, said Patricia Webb, a retired
Air Force colonel who helped raise funds for the trip.
If the voyage
succeeds, it could add to Earhart’s legacy and solve a mystery
that’s captured national attention since her disappearance, she
said.
“If they find
something, that adds a lot of credibility to her, to her navigator
Fred Noonan, and to their survival skills because of the things that
have been found so far on Nikumaroro,” she said.
The trip is planned to
last roughly 26 days, including 10 days of searching and 16 days
traveling between Honolulu and the atoll. The voyagers will use a
ship owned by the University of Hawaii, an oceanographic research
vessel named Kaimikai-O-Kanaloa, which translates into English, “The
Searcher of the Seas of the God Kanaloa.”
Gillespie said the
group has as good of a chance as it can expect given its equipment,
including an unmanned vehicle that looks like a torpedo used for
mapping terrain on the ocean floor and a tethered remote-operated
vehicle that will be used to take pictures and look at objects
identified in the water.
And Earhart’s
standing as an American icon — especially to young women — and
fascination in her story means it’s important to solve the mystery,
he said.
“That kind of
inspiration matters,” Gillespie said. “We want to know what
happened to her.”
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