answersLogoWhite

0

Her mechanic that was there and worked with her up until she took off for her last flight, before she dissapeared was Ruckins McKneely Jr. aka "Bo".

Ruckins McKneely Jr., a mechanic who tended Amelia Earhart's plane just before she took off from Miami in 1937 for the round-the-world trip on which she vanished, died on April 16 at a nursing home in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was 89 and lived in Murfreesboro.

Mr. McKneely, known as Bo, a quiet, good-humored man with dark wavy hair and light blue eyes, was born in Patterson, La., and brought up, as he put it, ''in a logging camp back in the swamps of Louisiana.'' He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology for a year and was then an aircraft mechanic at the Atlanta airport.

In 1936, he went to California and was hired by Earhart, who was already a famous aviator, although he had not heard of her. He had been recommended by a racing pilot, Paul Mantz.

''Bo loved airplanes, and he'd do anything to be around them,'' said Carol L. Osborne, an aviation historian.

Mr. McKneely took such good care of Earhart's two-engine Lockheed Electra 10-E that Earhart said, ''The good-luck charm which seems to me most important is a good mechanic -- that and a good engine. I'm fortunate in having both.''

User Avatar

Wiki User

12y ago

What else can I help you with?