Amelia Mary Earhart (24 July 1897 – missing
2 July 1937, declared deceased 5
January 1939) was a noted American aviation pioneer, author and women's
rights advocate.[1][2] Earhart was the first woman
to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross,[3] which she was awarded as the first woman to fly solo across the
Atlantic Ocean.[4]
She set many other records,[5] wrote best-selling books
about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an
organization for women pilots.[6]
Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific
Ocean near Howland Island during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance
continues to this day.[7]
Early life
Childhood
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart, daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1868-1930)[8] and Amelia Otis Earhart (1869-1962),[9] was born in Atchison, Kansas.[10] in the home of her maternal
grandfather, Alfred Otis, a former federal judge, president of the Atchison
Savings Bank and a leading citizen in Atchison. Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with
Edwin's progress as a lawyer. Amelia was named, according to family custom, after her two
grandmothers (Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton).[11] From early on, "Meeley" (sometimes "Milie") was the ringleader while younger sister (two years her
junior), Grace Muriel (1899-1998)[12] or "Pidge," acted
the dutiful follower. Both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood.[13] Their upbringing was unconventional since Amy Earhart did not believe in
molding her children into "nice little girls."[14]
Meanwhile their maternal grandmother disapproved of the "bloomers" worn by Amy's children and although Amelia liked the freedom
they provided, she was aware other neighborhood girls did not wear them.
Early influences
A spirit of adventure[15] seemed to abide in the
Earhart children with the pair setting off daily to explore their neighborhood for interesting and exciting pursuits. As a child,
Amelia spent long hours playing with Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle and "belly-slamming" her sled downhill. The
girls kept "worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad"[16]
in a growing collection gathered in their outings. Some biographers have even characterized the young Amelia as a
tomboy.[17] In 1904, with
the help of her uncle, she cobbled together a home-made ramp fashioned after a roller coaster she had seen on a trip to
St. Louis and secured the ramp to the roof of the family toolshed. Amelia's
well-documented first flight ended dramatically. She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised
lip, torn dress and a sensation of exhilaration. She exclaimed, "Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!"[18]
Although there had been some missteps in his career up to that point, in 1907 Edwin Earhart's job as a claims officer for the
Rock Island Railroad led to a transfer to Des Moines, Iowa. The next year, at the age of 11, Amelia saw her first
airplane at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.
Her father tried to interest her and her sister in taking a flight. One look at the rickety old "flivver" was enough for Amelia,
who promptly asked if they could go back to the merry-go-round.[19] She later described the biplane as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all
interesting.”[20]
Education
While her father and mother found a small home in Des Moines, Amelia and Muriel remained with their grandparents in Atchison.
Until she was 12, Amelia and her sister received a form of home-schooling from her mother and a governess. She later recounted
that she was "exceedingly fond of reading"[21] and spent
countless hours in the large family library. In 1909, when the family was finally reunited in Des Moines, the Earhart children
were enrolled in public school for the first time with Amelia entering the seventh grade.
Family fortunes
While the family's finances seemingly improved with the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of two servants, it
soon became apparent Edwin was an alcoholic. Five years later (in 1914), he was forced to retire, and although he attempted to
rehabilitate himself through treatment, he was never reinstated at the Rock Island Railroad. At about this time, Amelia's
grandmother Amelia Otis died suddenly, leaving a substantial estate that placed her daughter's share in trust, fearing that
Edwin's drinking would drain the funds. The Otis house, and all of its contents, was auctioned; Amelia was heart-broken and later
described it as the end of her childhood.[22]
In 1915, after a long search, Amelia's father found work as a clerk at the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Amelia entered Central High School as
a junior. Edwin applied for a transfer to Springfield, Missouri, in 1915 but the current claims officer reconsidered his retirement and demanded his job back, leaving
the elder Earhart with nowhere to go. Facing another calamitous move, Amy Earhart took her children to Chicago where they lived with friends. Amelia was enrolled in Hyde Park High School but
spent a miserable semester where a yearbook caption captured the essence of her unhappiness, "A.E.- the girl in brown who walks
alone."[23]
Amelia graduated from Hyde Park School in 1916. Throughout her troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future
career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film
direction and production, law, advertising, management and mechanical engineering.[24] She began junior college at Ogontz
School in Rydal, Pennsylvania but did not complete her program.[25]
During Christmas vacation in 1917, she visited her sister in Toronto, Ontario. World War I had been raging and Amelia saw the returning wounded
soldiers. After receiving training as a nurse's aide from the
Red Cross she began work at Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, Ontario with the Volunteer Aid Detachment. Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with
special diets and handing out prescriptions in the hospital's dispensary.[26] She continued to work in the hospital until after the Armistice
ending World War I was signed in November 1918.
At about that time, she visited an exposition held in Toronto with a young woman friend. One of the highlights of the day was
a flying exhibition put on by a World War I "ace."[27]
The pilot overhead spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dove at them. "I am sure he
said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she said. Earhart characteristically stood her ground, swept by a mixture of fear
and exhilaration. As the plane came close, something inside her awakened. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I
believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by."[28]
She had a serious sinus infection that year. This was before antibiotics were available and she underwent surgical treatment.
The procedure wasn't successful and Earhart subsequently suffered from sharpening headache attacks. Her convalescence lasted
nearly a year, which she spent at her sister's home in Northampton,
Massachusetts. She passed the time by reading poetry, learning to play the banjo and
studying mechanics. By 1919 Earhart prepared to enter Smith College but changed her mind
and enrolled at Columbia University to take a course in medicine.[29] She quit a year later to be with her parents who had
reunited in California.
L–R: "Neta" Snook with Amelia Earhart standing next to Earhart's Kinner Airster, c.1921
Early flying experiences
In Long Beach, on 28 December,
1920, she and her father visited an airfield where Frank
Hawks (who later gained fame as an air racer) gave her a ride that would forever
change Earhart's life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly."[30] After that ten-minute flight, she immediately became
determined to learn to fly. Working at a variety of jobs, as a photographer, driving a truck, and working at the local telephone
company, she managed to earn $1000 for flying lessons. Earhart had her first lessons, beginning on 3
January 1921, at Kinner Field near Long Beach but to reach the airfield Amelia took a bus to
the end of the line, then walked four miles.[31] Her
teacher was Anita "Neta" Snook, a pioneer female aviator who used a surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Canuck" for training. Amelia arrived with her father and a singular request, "I want to fly.
Will you teach me?"[32]
Six months later, Amelia purchased a second-hand bright yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she nicknamed "The
Canary." On 22 October 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an
altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a world record for women pilots. On 15 May 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman to be issued a pilot's license (#6017)[33] by the Fédération
Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).[34]
Aviation career and marriage
Boston
According to the Boston Globe, she was "one of the best women pilots in the
United States", although this characterization has been disputed by aviation experts and experienced pilots in the decades
since.[35][36][37] Amelia was an
intelligent and competent pilot[38] but hardly a
brilliant aviator, whose early efforts were characterized as inadequate by more seasoned flyers.[39] One serious miscalculation occurred during a record attempt that had ended with
her spinning down through a cloud bank, only to emerge at 3,000 ft. Experienced pilots admonished her, "Suppose the clouds had
closed in until they touched the ground?"[40] Earhart was
chagrined yet acknowledged her limitations as a pilot and continued to seek out assistance throughout her career from various
instructors.[41] Gradually her skills and professionalism
grew and, by 1927, "Without any serious incident, she had accumulated nearly 500 hours of solo flying - a very respectable
achievement."[42]
Throughout this period, her grandmother's inheritance, which was now administered by her mother, was constantly depleted until
it finally ran out following a disastrous investment in a failed gypsum mine. Simultaneously,
Earhart's health problem persisted as her old sinus pain sharpened, so in early 1924 she was hospitalized for another
unsuccessful sinus operation. Consequently, with no immediate prospects for recouping her investment in flying, Earhart sold the
"Canary" as well as a second Kinner and bought a yellow Kissel roadster which she named "the Yellow Peril." After trying her hand at a number of interesting ventures
including setting up a photography company, Amelia set out in a new direction. Following her parents' divorce in 1924, she drove
her mother in the "Yellow Peril" on a transcontinental trip from California with stops throughout the West and even a jaunt up to
Calgary, Alberta. The meandering tour eventually brought
the pair to Boston, Massachusetts where Amelia
underwent a new sinus surgery, this time a more successful one. After recuperation, she returned for several months to Columbia
University but was forced to abandon her studying and further plans for MIT because her mother could no longer afford the tuition. Soon after, she found
employment first as a teacher, then as a social worker in 1925 at Denison House, living in
Medford.
Earhart maintained her interest in aviation, becoming a member of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter, and was
eventually elected its vice president. She also invested a small sum of money in the Dennison Airport as well as acting as a
sales representative for Kinner airplanes in the Boston area.[43] She wrote local newspaper columns promoting flying and as her
local celebrity grew, laid out the plans for an organization devoted to women flyers.[44]
Amelia Earhart being greeted by Mrs. Foster Welch, Mayor of Southampton,
20 June
1928
1928 transatlantic flight
After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Phipps Guest, an American socialite (1873-1959), expressed interest in being the
first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean. After deciding the trip was too perilous for her to undertake, she
offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April
1928, Earhart got a phone call from publicist Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"
The project coordinators (including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam)
interviewed Amelia and asked her to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as
a passenger, but with the added duty of keeping the flight log. The team departed Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland
in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on 17 June 1928, landing at Burry Port (near Llanelli),
Wales, United Kingdom, approximately 21 hours later. Since
most of the flight was on "instruments" and Amelia had no training for this type of flying, she did not pilot the plane. When
interviewed after landing, she said, "Stultz did all the flying - had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes." She
added, "...maybe someday I'll try it alone."[45]
While in England, Earhart flew the Avro Avian 594 Avian III, SN: R3/AV/101 owned by Lady
Mary Heath. She purchased the aircraft and had it shipped back to the United States (where it was assigned “unlicensed aircraft
identification mark” 7083).
When the Stultz, Gordon and Earhart flight crew returned to the United States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York followed by a reception with President Calvin Coolidge at the
White House.
Celebrity image
Trading on her physical resemblance to Lindbergh,[46] whom the press had dubbed "Lucky Lindy," some newspapers and magazines began
referring to Amelia as "Lady Lindy.[47] The United Press
was more grandiloquent; to them, Earhart was the reigning "Queen of the Air."[48] Immediately after her return to the United States, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour
(1928-29). Meanwhile, Putnam had undertaken to heavily promote her in a campaign including publishing a book she authored, a
series of new lecture tours and using pictures of her in mass market endorsements for products including luggage, "Lucky Strike"
cigarettes (this caused image problems for her, with McCall's magazine retracting an
offer)[49] and women's clothing and
sportswear. The money that she made with "Lucky Strike" had been earmarked for a $1,500 donation to Commander Richard Byrd's imminent South Pole expedition.[49] Rather than simply endorsing the products, Amelia actively became
involved in the promotions, especially in women's fashions. For a number of years she had sewn her own clothes, but the "active
living" lines that were sold in 50 stores such as Macy's in metropolitan areas were an expression of a new Earhart image. Her
concept of simple, natural lines matched with wrinkle-proof, washable materials was the embodiment of a sleek, purposeful but
feminine "A.E." (the familiar name she went by with family and friends).[50][51] The luggage line that
she promoted (marketed as Modernaire Earhart Luggage) also bore her unmistakable stamp. She ensured that the luggage met the
demands of air travel; it is still being produced today. A wide range of promotional items would appear bearing the Earhart
"image" and likewise, modern equivalents are still being marketed to this day.[52] The marketing campaign by G.P. Putnam was successful in establishing the Earhart mystique in the
public psyche.[53]
Studio portrait of Amelia Earhart, c. 1932. Putnam specifically instructed Earhart to disguise a "gap-toothed" smile by keeping
her mouth closed in formal photographs.
Promoting aviation
The celebrity endorsements would help Amelia finance her flying.[54] Accepting a position as associate editor at Cosmopolitan magazine, she turned this forum
into an opportunity to campaign for greater public acceptance of aviation, especially focusing on the role of women entering the
field.[55] In 1929, Earhart was among the first aviators
to promote commercial air travel through the development of a passenger airline service; along with Charles Lindbergh, she
represented Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), and invested time and
money in setting up the first regional shuttle service between New York and
Washington, DC. (TAT later became TWA).
She was a Vice President of National Airways, which conducted the flying operations of
the Boston-Maine Airways and several other airlines in the northeast.[56] By 1940, it had become Northeast Airlines.
Competitive flying
Although she had gained fame for her transtlantic flight, Earhart endeavored to set an "untarnished" record of her
own.[57] Shortly after her return, piloting Avian
7083, she set off on her first long solo flight which occurred just as her name was coming into the national spotlight. By
making the trip in August 1928, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back [58] She subsequently made her first attempt at competitive air
racing in 1929 during the first Santa Monica-to-Cleveland Women's Air Derby (later nicknamed the "Powder Puff Derby" by Will Rogers), placing third. In 1930,
Earhart became an official of the National Aeronautic Association where
she actively promoted the establishment of separate womens' records and was instrumental in the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) accepting a similar international
standard.[59] In 1931, flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogiro, she set a world altitude record of 18,415
feet (5613 m) in a borrowed company machine. While to a reader today it might seem that Earhart was engaged in flying "stunts,"
she was, with other women flyers, crucial to making the American public "air minded" and convincing them that aviation was no
longer just for dare devils and supermen.[60]
During this period, Earhart became involved with The Ninety-Nines, an organization of
women pilots providing moral support and advancing the cause of women in aviation. She had called a meeting of women pilots in
1929 following the Women's Air Derby. She suggested the name based on the number of the charter members; she later became the
organization's first president in 1930.[61] Amelia was a
vigorous advocate for women pilots and when the 1934 Bendix Trophy race banned women, she
openly refused to fly screen actress Mary Pickford to Cleveland to open the races.[62]
Marriage
Amelia Earhart and her husband, George P. Putnam
For a while she was engaged to Samuel Chapman, a chemical engineer from Boston, breaking off her engagement on
23 November, 1928.[63] During the same period, Earhart and Putnam had spent a great deal of time
together, leading to intimacy. George Putnam, who was known as GP, was divorced in 1929 and
sought out Amelia, proposing to her numerous times before she finally agreed.[64] After substantial hesitation on her part, they married on 7
February, 1931 in Putnam's mother's house in Noank, Connecticut. Earhart referred to her
marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control." In a letter written to Putnam and hand delivered to him on the day of the
wedding, she wrote, "I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval (midaevil [sic]) code of faithfulness to me
nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.[65][66][67]
Amelia's ideas on marriage were liberal for the time as she believed in equal responsibilities for both "breadwinners" and
pointedly kept her own name rather than being referred to as Mrs. Putnam. When The New York Times, per the rules of its
stylebook, insisted on referring to her as Mrs. Putnam, she laughed it off. GP also learned quite soon that he would be called
"Mr. Earhart."[68] There was no honeymoon for the
newlyweds as Amelia was involved in a nine-day cross-country tour promoting autogyros and the tour sponsor, "Beechnut Gum."
Although Earhart and Putnam had no children, he had two sons by his previous marriage to Dorothy Binney (1888-1982),[69] a chemical heiress whose father's company, Binney & Smith, invented Crayola crayons:[70] the explorer and writer David Binney Putnam
(1913-1992) and George Palmer Putnam, Jr. (born 1921).[71] Amelia was especially fond of David who frequently visited his father at their family home in
Rye, New York. George had contracted polio
shortly after his parents' separation and was unable to visit as often.
A few years later, a fire broke out at the Putnam residence in Rye and before it could be contained, destroyed much of the
Putnam family treasures including many of Earhart's personal mementos. Following the fire, GP and AE decided to move to the west
coast, since Putnam had already sold his interest in the publishing company to his cousin Palmer, setting up in North Hollywood, which brought GP close to Paramount Pictures and his new position as head of the editorial board of this motion picture
company.[72]
1932 transatlantic solo flight
At the age of 34, on the morning of 20 May 1932 Earhart set off
from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland with the latest (dated) copy of a local newspaper. She intended to fly to
Paris in her single engine Lockheed Vega,
duplicating Charles Lindbergh's solo flight. Her technical advisor for the flight was
famed Norwegian American aviator Bernt Balchen
who helped prepare her aircraft.[73] After a flight
lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes during which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems,
Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry,
Northern Ireland. When a farm hand asked, "Have you flown far?" Amelia replied, "From
America." The site is now the Amelia Earhart Centre.[74]
As the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor
from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert
Hoover. As her fame grew, she developed friendships with many people in high offices, most notably, Eleanor Roosevelt, the
"First Lady." Roosevelt shared many of Earhart's interests and passions, especially womens' causes. After flying with Amelia,
Eleanor actually obtained a student permit but did not pursue her plans to learn to fly. The two friends communicated frequently
throughout their lives.[75] Another famous flyer,
Jacqueline Cochran, who the public considered Amelia's greatest rival, also became a
confidant and friend during this period.
Earhart and "old Bessie" Vega 5b c. 1935
Other solo flights
On 11 January 1935, Earhart became the first person to fly
solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland,
California. Although this transoceanic flight had been attempted by many others, most notably by the unfortunate
participants in the 1927 Dole Air Race which had reversed the route, her
trailblazing[76] flight had been mainly routine, with no mechanical breakdowns. In her
final hours, she even relaxed and listened to "the broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera from New York."[76]
That year, once more flying her faithful Vega which she had tagged "old Bessie, the fire horse," Earhart soloed from
Los Angeles to Mexico City on 19 April. The
next record attempt was a nonstop flight from Mexico City to New York. Setting off on 8 May, her flight was uneventful although
the large crowds that greeted her at Newark, New Jersey were a concern[77] as she had to be careful not to taxi into the throng.
Earhart again participated in long-distance air racing, placing fifth in the 1935 Bendix
Trophy Race, the best result she could manage considering that her stock Lockheed Vega topping out at 195 mph was
outclassed by purpose-built air racers which reached more than 300 mph. [78] The race had been a particularly difficult one as one competitor, Cecil Allen, died in a fiery
takeoff mishap and rival Jacqueline Cochran was forced to retire due to mechanical problems and the "blinding fog"[79] and violent thunderstorms that plagued the race.
Between 1930–1935, Amelia had set seven women's speed and distance records in a variety of airplanes including the Kinner
Airster, Lockheed Vega and Pitcairn Autogiro. By 1935, recognizing the limitations of her "lovely red Vega" in long, transoceanic
flights, Amelia contemplated, in her own words, a new "prize... one flight which I most wanted to attempt - a circumnavigation of
the globe as near its waistline as could be."[80] For the
new venture, she would need a new aircraft.
1937 world flight
Amelia Earhart's
Lockheed L-10E Electra. During its modification, the aircraft had
most of the cabin windows blanked out and had specially fitted fuselage fuel tanks.
Planning
Earhart joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1935 as a visiting faculty
member to counsel women on careers and as a technical advisor to the Department of Aeronautics.[81] In July 1936, she took delivery of a Lockheed 10E Electra financed by Purdue and started planning a round-the-world flight. Not the
first to circle the globe, it would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km), following a grueling equatorial route. Although
the Electra was publicized as a "flying laboratory," little useful science was planned and the flight seems to have been arranged
around Earhart's intention to circumnavigate the globe along with gathering raw material and public attention for her next book.
Her first choice as navigator was Captain Harry Manning, who had been the captain of the President Roosevelt, the ship
that had brought Amelia back from Europe in 1928.
Through contacts in the Los Angeles aviation community, Fred Noonan was subsequently chosen as a second navigator.[82] He had vast experience in both marine (he was a licensed
ship's captain) and flight navigation. There were significant additional factors which had to be taken into account while using
celestial navigation for aircraft.[83] Noonan had
recently left Pan Am, where he established most of the company's seaplane
routes across the Pacific. Noonan had also been responsible for training Pan American's
navigators for the route between San Francisco and Manila.[84][85] The original plans were
for Noonan to navigate from Hawaii to Howland Island, a particularly difficult portion of
the flight; then Manning would continue with Earhart to Australia and she would proceed on her own for the remainder of the
project.
First attempt
On St. Patrick's Day, 17 March 1937, they flew the first leg from Oakland, California to
Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Earhart and Noonan, Harry Manning and Hollywood stunt
pilot Paul Mantz (who was acting as Earhart's technical advisor) were on board. Due to
lubrication and galling problems with the propeller hubs' variable pitch mechanisms, the aircraft needed servicing in Hawaii.
Ultimately, the Electra ended up at the U.S. Navy's Luke Field on Ford Island in
Pearl Harbor. The flight resumed three days later from Luke Field with Earhart, Noonan and
Manning on board, and during the takeoff run, Earhart ground-looped. The
circumstances of the ground loop remain controversial. Some witnesses at Luke Field including the Associated Press journalist on
the scene said they saw a tire blow [86] Earhart thought either the Electra's right tire had blown and/or the right landing gear had
collapsed. Some sources, including Mantz, cited pilot error.[86]
With the plane severely damaged, the flight was called off and the aircraft was shipped by sea to the Lockheed facility in
Burbank, California for repairs.
Second attempt
While the Electra was being repaired Earhart and Putnam secured additional funds and prepared for a second attempt. This time
flying west to east, the second attempt began with an unpublicized flight from Oakland to Miami,
Florida and after arriving there Earhart publicly announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe. The flight's opposite
direction was partly the result of changes in global wind and weather patterns along the planned route since the earlier attempt.
Fred Noonan was Earhart's only crew member for the second flight. They departed Miami on 1 June
and after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the
Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia,
arrived at Lae, New Guinea on 29
June 1937. At this stage about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey had been completed.
The remaining 7,000 miles (11,000 km) would all be over the Pacific.
Departure from Lae
On 2 July 1937 (midnight GMT) Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae in the heavily loaded
Electra. Their intended destination was Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 6,500 ft
(2,000 metres) long and 1,600 ft (500 metres) wide, 10 feet (3 m) high and 2,556 miles (4,113 km) away. Their last known position
report was near the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles (1,300 km) into the flight. The
United States Coast Guard cutter Itasca was on station at Howland, assigned to communicate with Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E
and guide them to the island once they arrived in the vicinity.
Final approach to Howland Island
Through a series of misunderstandings or errors (the details of which are still controversial), the final approach to Howland
Island using radio navigation wasn't successful. Fred Noonan had earlier written about problems affecting the accuracy of radio
direction finding in navigation.[87] Some sources have
noted Earhart's apparent lack of understanding of her Bendix direction finding loop antenna, which at the time was very new
technology. Another cited cause of possible confusion was that the USCG cutter Itasca and Earhart planned their
communication schedule using time systems set a half hour apart (with Earhart using Greenwich Civil Time (GCT) and the
Itasca under a Naval time zone designation system).[88]
Motion picture evidence from Lae suggests that an antenna mounted underneath the
fuselage may have been torn off from the fuel-heavy Electra during taxi or takeoff from Lae's turf runway, though no antenna was
reported found at Lae. Don Dwiggins, in his biography of Paul Mantz (who assisted Earhart and
Noonan in their flight planning), noted that the aviators had cut off their long-wire antenna, due to the annoyance of having to
crank it back into the aircraft after each use.
Earhart in the Electra cockpit, c.1936
Radio signals
During Earhart and Noonan's approach to Howland Island the Itasca received strong and clear voice transmissions from
Earhart identifying as KHAQQ but she apparently was unable to hear voice transmissions from the ship. At 7:42 a.m. Earhart
radioed "We must be on you, but cannot see you -- but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying
at 1,000 feet." Her 7:58 a.m. transmission said she couldn't hear the Itasca and asked them to send voice signals so she
could try to take a radio bearing (this transmission was reported by the Itasca as the loudest possible signal, indicating
Earhart and Noonan were in the immediate area). They couldn't send voice at the frequency she asked for, so Morse code signals
were sent instead. Earhart acknowledged receiving these but said she was unable to determine their direction.[89]
In her last known transmission at 8:43 a.m. Earhart broadcast "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We
will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait." However, a few moments later she was back on the same frequency (3105 KHz) with a
transmission which was logged as a "questionable": "We are running on line north and south." [90] Earhart's transmissions seemed to indicate she and Noonan believed they had
reached Howland's charted position, which was incorrect by about five nautical miles (ten km). The Itasca used her oil-fired
boilers to generate smoke for a period of time but the fliers apparently did not see it. The many scattered clouds in the area
around Howland Island have also been cited as a problem: their dark shadows on the ocean surface may have been almost
indistinguishable from the island's subdued and very flat profile.
Whether or not any post-loss radio signals were received from Earhart and Noonan remains controversial. If transmissions were
received from the Electra, most if not all were weak and hopelessly garbled. Earhart's voice transmissions to Howland were on
3105 KHz, a frequency restricted to aviation use in the United States by the FCC.[91] This frequency was not thought to be fit for broadcasts over great distances. When Earhart was at
cruising altitude and mid-way between Lae and Howland (over 1,000 miles from each) neither station heard her scheduled
transmission at 0815 GCT.[92] Moreover, the 50-watt
transmitter used by Earhart was attached to a less-than-optimum-length V-type antenna.[93][94]
The last voice transmission received on Howland Island from Earhart indicated she and Noonan were flying along a line of
position (taken from a "sun line" running on 157-337 degrees) which Noonan would have calculated and drawn on a chart as passing
through Howland.[95] After all contact was lost with
Howland Island, attempts were made to reach the flyers with both voice and Morse code
transmissions. Operators across the Pacific and the United States may have heard signals from the downed Electra but these were
unintelligible or weak.[96]
Some of these transmissions were hoaxes but others were deemed authentic. Bearings taken by
Pan American Airways stations suggested signals originating from several
locations, including Gardner Island.[97][98] It was noted at the time that if these signals were from
Earhart and Noonan, they must have been on land with the aircraft since water would have otherwise shorted out the Electra's
electrical system.[99][100] Sporadic signals were reported for four or five days after the disappearance
but none yielded any understandable information.[101] The
captain of the USS Colorado later said "There was no doubt many stations were calling the Earhart plane on the plane's frequency,
some by voice and others by signals. All of these added to the confusion and doubtfulness of the authenticity of the
reports."[102]
Search efforts
Beginning approximately one hour after Earhart's last recorded message, the USCG Itasca undertook an ultimately
unsuccessful search north and west of Howland Island based on initial assumptions about transmissions from the aircraft. The
U.S. Navy soon joined the search and over a period of about three days sent available
resources to the search area in the vicinity of Howland Island. The initial search by the Itasca involved running up the
157/337 line of position to the NNW from Howland Island. The Itasca then searched the area to the immediate NE of the
island, corresponding to the area, yet wider than the area searched to the NW. Based on bearings of several supposed Earhart
radio transmissions, some of the search efforts were directed to a specific position 281 degrees NW of Howland Island without
finding land or evidence of the flyers.[103] Four days after Earhart's last verified radio transmission, on
6 July 1937 the captain of the battleship Colorado received orders from the Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District to take over all naval and coast guard units to coordinate
search efforts.[103]
Later search efforts were directed to the Phoenix Islands south of Howland
Island[104] A week after the disappearance naval aircraft
from the Colorado flew over several islands in the group including Gardner Island,
which had been uninhabited for over 40 years. The subsequent report on Gardner read, "Here signs of recent habitation were
clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was
finally taken for granted that none were there... At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4000 tons)... lay
high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places. The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep
and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or takenoff [sic] in any direction with little
if any difficulty. Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her plane in this lagoon and swum or waded
ashore."[105] They also found that Gardner's shape and
size as recorded on charts were wholly inaccurate. Other Navy search efforts were again directed north, west and southwest of
Howland Island, based on a possibility the Electra had ditched in the ocean, was afloat, or that the aviators were in an
emergency raft.[106]
The official search efforts lasted until 19 July 1937.[107] At $4 million, the air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in history up to that time but search and rescue techniques during the era were rudimentary and some of the search was based on
erroneous assumptions and flawed information. Official reporting of the search effort was influenced by individuals wary about
how their roles in looking for an American hero might be reported by the press.[108] Despite an unprecedented search by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard no physical evidence of Earhart,
Noonan or the Electra 10E was found.[109]
Immediately after the end of the official search, G.P. Putnam financed a private search by local authorities of nearby Pacific
islands and waters, concentrating on the Gilberts. In late July 1937 Putnam chartered two small boats and while he remained in
the United States, directed a search of the Phoenix Islands, Christmas Island, Fanning Island, the Gilberts and the Marshall
Islands but no traces of the Electra or its occupants were found.[110]
AP Photo of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, May 1937,
Los Angles
Disappearance theories
Many theories emerged after the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan. Two possibilities concerning the flyers' fate have
prevailed among researchers and historians.
Crash and sink theory
Many researchers believe the Electra ran out of fuel and Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. Navigator and aeronautical
engineer Elgen Long and his wife Marie K. Long devoted 35 years of exhaustive research to the
"crash and sink" theory, which is the most widely accepted explanation for the disappearance.[111]
