Earhart Crash-and-sank theory - basis?

[Ghost of Itasca]

I'm starting this new thread to encourage Gary LaPook and others to write directly as to the positives for the case that Earhart crashed and sank at sea while attempting to fly to Howland Island.

My hope is that the case as proponents of that theory see it might be made more clearly here instead of trying to pick the logic out of what amounts to a long-running critique of other theories, namely that of a possible arrival at Gardner (now Nikumaroro) island.

My hope is further that Gary LaPook in particular will take this up. Gary's a very able navigator, as regulars here know, and has become associated with Stratus in the search for Earhart.

[PinecastleAAF]

To my way of thinking it is incredibly simple. As has been mentioned the Pacific is large. NO TRACE of them has ever been found. Honestly there is a 99.9999% chance they crashed at sea and sank.

How many aircrews from the Pacific theatre in WW2 took off for an island destination (ferry flight) and never arrived? While I realize some were shot down since there was a war on I also believe most were lost to mechanical problems, navigation errors leading to fuel exhaustion and/or bad weather.

Again I refer to Occam's Razor. I have to go with the logical, high percentage choice. It is almost certainly correct.

[Ghost of Itasca]

Good logic and true that Earhart is not alone in having disappeared, PinecastleAAF - many never left a trace I'm sure.

[Viper Strike]

To my way of thinking it is incredibly simple. As has been mentioned the Pacific is large. NO TRACE of them has ever been found. Honestly there is a 99.9999% chance they crashed at sea and sank.

How many aircrews from the Pacific theatre in WW2 took off for an island destination (ferry flight) and never arrived? While I realize some were shot down since there was a war on I also believe most were lost to mechanical problems, navigation errors leading to fuel exhaustion and/or bad weather.

Again I refer to Occam's Razor. I have to go with the logical, high percentage choice. It is almost certainly correct.

Along with those scenarios,there were added statements from the earhart flight to help one consider the loss at Sea theory,....I'm Low on gas, only 1/2 hour left ( estimate)....it adds weight.

[PinecastleAAF]

I want to make it clear in my earlier post I was just referring to non-combat flights. I just finished reading 'Unbroken' and the fact that the Green Hornet went down on a search for another missing bomber on a ferry flight really drove home just how vast the Pacific is and how unlikely rescue is in the case of a ditching, and that was 5 years after the Earhart flight with almost certainly better air sea rescue resources by that time. And that B-25 they were looking for was never found......not a trace. In fact the book goes into some detail about the number of missing aircrew on technically non-combat flights. The numbers are staggering.

[gari]

To my way of thinking it is incredibly simple. As has been mentioned the Pacific is large. NO TRACE of them has ever been found. Honestly there is a 99.9999% chance they crashed at sea and sank.

How many aircrews from the Pacific theatre in WW2 took off for an island destination (ferry flight) and never arrived? While I realize some were shot down since there was a war on I also believe most were lost to mechanical problems, navigation errors leading to fuel exhaustion and/or bad weather.

Again I refer to Occam's Razor. I have to go with the logical, high percentage choice. It is almost certainly correct.

Hi, new here, first post

Something I think about, as a comparison, is Flight 19, those five TBM Avengers that 'disappeared' off the coast of Florida in 1945.

We have a rough idea within where they 'went in' as in 150 miles -/+ 50 of Florida's coast, five planes, with radios and in contact with base. Of course there are theories ranging from poor navigation to unserviceable instruments to the senior officer of the flight being boneheaded he was right, we'll never know, the reason, probably.

That incident happened eight years closer to our time, nearer to mainland civilization, on a much more travelled ocean route, five 'targets' to locate, 14 bodies [iirc] etc yet not a trace has been found.

Compare that to the Earhart Electra, where -if they are honest- no one KNOWS where NR16020 is, cases have been made for a return path as far as ENB, as far south as Nikumaroro, and as far north as what 60 plus miles, triangulate that and you have a HUGE area of water, most of it deeper than where Fight 19 went in.

If we can't find five planes within 200 miles of Florida, in well travelled waters, in nearly 70 years, what are the chances of finding NR16020 in a bigger area and with 8 more years of deterioration?

[myteaquinn]

Lost at sea with no trace. Malaysian 370 should have taught us how possible it is for that to happen.

Callsign corrected, thank you Jeff I should never trust my memory.

Last edited by myteaquinn on Tue Mar 31, 2015 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Ghost of Itasca]

Malaysian 370 MAY be another example, but I'll hold out for a bit on that one, just short of getting into conspiracy... LOL!!!

Good points, all, I think - including that what was heard at the end of Earhart's flight could be taken different ways - including the simple obvious, that she knew her fuel state and it wasn't so good.

We know of some ocean floor that doesn't need revisiting, thanks to Nauticos / Waitt. Where to go from there?

[HBeck]

Something I don't think anyone has mentioned is that a chain of undersea mountains follows the 157-337 line that the Electra was last reported flying on (Howland, Baker are subaerial examples of this same chain). So, if Fred and Amelia were really on, or close to the 157-337 line running though Howland when they ran out of fuel, the remnants of the plane may have settled in rough terrain underseas and thus be particularly hard to find.

[SaxMan]

If you look at the area where the plane could have gone, regardless of heading, water dominates the area, so the dominant odds would be that they landed on water.

Surviving the ditching was not a sure bet. One mistimed swell and the plane could flip over or break up on landing. Several pilots in World War II broke noses, etc. when their face hit the gunsight or instrument panel on ditching. It's possible AE and Noonan ditched hard, knocked themselves unconscious and never recovered while the Pacific swallowed up the Electra.

I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Neville about MH370 -- I think the sea will give up its secret. The Flight 19 analogy is a good one...going on 70 years with 5 potential targets, 14 crew -- and not a trace...and a TBM is a big, rugged plane. They don't disappear without a trace that easily. I've heard theories that the planes are in the Okefenokee Swamp to submerged in the Caribbean off Key West.

[old iron]

Jeff wrote:

We know of some ocean floor that doesn't need revisiting, thanks to Nauticos / Waitt. Where to go from there?

I still wonder if Nauticos/Waitt were looking for an intact aircraft or had resolution sufficient to resolve engine-sized fragments. My guess is that, if they ran out of gas at circa 1000' altitude, there was more likely a crash than a ditch. Noonan was generally in the back of the aircraft, though he may have climbed over the gas tanks to help with the visual search from the cockpit. If in back, his weight closer to the tail may have made the airplane more difficult to control (re: the center-of-gravity issues mentioned earlier) once the forward thrust was gone. In any case, this was not as ruggedly built as military aircraft. The plane could easily be fairly widely distributed as smaller pieces.

Has anything been published about the nature of the sea floor topography in that area? (ie, flat landscapes of microplankton ooze versus more rugged terrain composed of fields of iron nodules? If the latter, it may be impossible to see the craft through remote sensing)

[Ghost of Itasca]

My recollection is that Nauticos-Waitt had plenty of resolution and focused on what was mainly relatively flat, uniform ocean floor to the north and west of Howland island, but not into the crags of Howland's sea slopes. The idea was, I think, that working that close in would have not been needed as an approaching flight should have been noticed if that close. I think the effort was also limited legally by the national preserve there - but with no real need to go closer for the reason I just cited, perhaps.

I went to their site, but could not find the specifics as to imagery. Maybe a bit more of a search there will yield more for you, but I do recall seeing some rather small features highlighted that were 'seen' by their towed array at something like around 6000 meters deep, or so. Alas, a barrel or pipe comes to mind, but no radial engines or airframe chunks.

A couple of books are offered on their site - one being Elgen Long's. Good stuff.

[gari]

My recollection is that Nauticos-Waitt had plenty of resolution and focused on what was mainly relatively flat, uniform ocean floor to the north and west of Howland island, but not into the crags of Howland's sea slopes. The idea was, I think, that working that close in would have not been needed as an approaching flight should have been noticed if that close. I think the effort was also limited legally by the national preserve there - but with no real need to go closer for the reason I just cited, perhaps.

I went to their site, but could not find the specifics as to imagery. Maybe a bit more of a search there will yield more for you, but I do recall seeing some rather small features highlighted that were 'seen' by their towed array at something like around 6000 meters deep, or so. Alas, a barrel or pipe comes to mind, but no radial engines or airframe chunks.

A couple of books are offered on their site - one being Elgen Long's. Good stuff.

I remember the oil barrel and pipe, I was amazed at the time, to think that so far down we can see an oil barrel, yes, not an Electra, but it demonstrates that a piece of metal the size of an oil drum can be found, so if there is any part of NR16020 of those dimensions -and not covered over with nearly 80 years of marine waste products- it can be found, so, for me, it was a positive 'mission' just because of that...kind of 'proof of concept'.

At least Nauticos/Waitt gave it a go, and that could be the foundation for future efforts, all it needs is a rich guy more interested in finding Earhart's Electra than a Japanese Battleship

[gari]

If you look at the area where the plane could have gone, regardless of heading, water dominates the area, so the dominant odds would be that they landed on water.

Surviving the ditching was not a sure bet. One mistimed swell and the plane could flip over or break up on landing. Several pilots in World War II broke noses, etc. when their face hit the gunsight or instrument panel on ditching. It's possible AE and Noonan ditched hard, knocked themselves unconscious and never recovered while the Pacific swallowed up the Electra.

I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Neville about MH370 -- I think the sea will give up its secret. The Flight 19 analogy is a good one...going on 70 years with 5 potential targets, 14 crew -- and not a trace...and a TBM is a big, rugged plane. They don't disappear without a trace that easily. I've heard theories that the planes are in the Okefenokee Swamp to submerged in the Caribbean off Key West.

Yes, I read something about the swamp hypothesis, if they are in a swamp and have not been found, isn't that an even more daunting negative in finding NR16020 a sea? lol

When MH370 'disappeared' and all the conspiracy folks were coming up with their ideas, I tried to explain the size of the task involved. The UK lost a ship, the MV Derbyshire, in a storm south of Japan, it was more massive than MH370 -the Derbyshire was nearly 300 metres long. It sunk with no mayday in 1980, an empty lifeboat was seen a few weeks later, yet the ship wasn't located until 14 years later. True it didn't have the ongoing sea-search effort MH370 has had, but nor did the Electra then or now. I remember Derbyshire as it is the largest UK registered ship to ever sink, and it seemed improbable that such a huge thing could be sunk by a mere storm, without even getting a mayday off...

The MH370 search has shown that we know comparatively naff-all about the ocean floor, they have been finding huge seamounts, so if we are just discovering these things, how easily hidden can an aircraft be whether NR16020 or MH370?

[gari]

My recollection is that Nauticos-Waitt had plenty of resolution and focused on what was mainly relatively flat, uniform ocean floor to the north and west of Howland island, but not into the crags of Howland's sea slopes. The idea was, I think, that working that close in would have not been needed as an approaching flight should have been noticed if that close. I think the effort was also limited legally by the national preserve there - but with no real need to go closer for the reason I just cited, perhaps.

I went to their site, but could not find the specifics as to imagery. Maybe a bit more of a search there will yield more for you, but I do recall seeing some rather small features highlighted that were 'seen' by their towed array at something like around 6000 meters deep, or so. Alas, a barrel or pipe comes to mind, but no radial engines or airframe chunks.

A couple of books are offered on their site - one being Elgen Long's. Good stuff.

Hi, I believe the Waitt Amelia Site is here:

http://searchforamelia.org/

The metal drum and pipe pictures are here:

http://searchforamelia.org/ds-imagery

Blimey, they started in 2007, is it really that long ago?