The Amelia Erhart Project - The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery

[bsteadman1]

The Erhart Project

The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery

Amelia Erhart in a Nutshell

The Earhart Project is testing the hypothesis that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan landed, and eventually died, on Gardner Island, now Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati.

This is what we think happened:

• Having failed to find Howland Island, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan continued on the navigational line Amelia said they were following.
• That line led them to uninhabited Gardner Island where Amelia landed the Electra safely on the island’s fringing reef.
• For the next several nights they used the aircraft’s radio to send distress calls.
• Radio bearings taken on the signals crossed in the vicinity of Gardner Island.
• One week after the flight disappeared, three U.S. Navy search planes flew over Gardner Island. By then, the distress calls had stopped. Rising tides and surf had swept the Electra over the reef edge.
• The Navy fliers saw no airplane but they did see “signs of recent habitation.” They thought that all the islands in the area were inhabited so they moved on. In fact, no one had lived on Gardner since 1892.
• Earhart (and possibly Noonan) lived for a time as castaways on the waterless atoll, relying on rain squalls for drinking water. They caught and cooked small fish, seabirds, turtles and clams. Amelia died at a makeshift campsite on the island’s southeast end. Noonan’s fate is unknown.
• Whatever remains of the Electra lies in deep water off the island’s west end.

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Visit the project website at:

http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/AEdescr1.html

[bsteadman]

The Window, the Patch, & the Artifact

Is TIGHAR Artifact 2-2-V-1 a piece of wreckage from Amelia Earhart’s aircraft?

Earhart Project Research Bulletin
October 28, 2014

Excerpt:

Abstract

During Amelia Earhart’s stay in Miami at the beginning of her second world flight attempt, a custom-made, special window on her Lockheed Electra aircraft was removed and replaced with an aluminum patch. The patch was an expedient field modification. Its dimensions, proportions, and pattern of rivets were dictated by the hole to be covered and the structure of the aircraft. The patch was as unique to her particular aircraft as a fingerprint is to an individual. Research has now shown that a section of aircraft aluminum TIGHAR found on Nikumaroro in 1991 matches that fingerprint in many respects.

View the complete post, including photos, at:

http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/A...p_by_Step.html

[bsteadman1]

The following is an excerpt of an email I received from TIGHAR on 12/15/2014:

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TIGHARNews

Dispatches From TIGHAR HQ
December 15, 2014
Artifact 2-2-V-1
Independent Review & Continuing Research

"The preponderance of the evidence indicates that you have a true Amelia Earhart artifact."

--Prof. Thomas W. Eagar, Materials and Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

- (Color and font size emphasis added)

On October 28, 2014 we announced that TIGHAR research has, to a high degree of certainty, identified a piece of aircraft debris found on Nikumaroro in 1991 as the patch installed on Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra Model 10E Special during her stop in Miami at the beginning of her second world flight attempt.

Seeking independent review of TIGHAR's findings, on November 14, 2014, we submitted Artifact 2-2-V-1 for examination by five top forensic analysts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It should be noted that TIGHAR had no contact with any of these professors in metallurgy, corrosion, failure analysis, and aeronautics and astronautics prior to setting up this review and none of them had previously been involved in Earhart-related research.

At the end of the session the lead scientist, Prof. Thomas Eagar, Sc.D., P.E., gave TIGHAR a signed letter describing his impression of the artifact and his opinion with respect to its origin. His letter concludes, "[T]he preponderance of the evidence indicates that you have a true Amelia Earhart artifact." We'll publish the full letter as part of a press release this week.

To be clear, neither TIGHAR nor the forensic scientists at MIT have proclaimed Artifact 2-2-V-1 to be unequivocally identified as having come from Amelia Earhart's aircraft. Research continues.

We've tracked down the best copies of two more photographs of the Electra that show the patch. Forensic analysis of those may give us a clearer picture of the rivet pattern. For full-sized photos, click HERE.

We also have a commercial lab recommended by Prof. Eagar doing a metallurgical comparison of 2-2-V-1 to known Electra aluminum and known WWII aluminum. We'll report those results as soon as we have them.

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Returning to Nikumaroro

This new research may reinforce the identification of Artifact 2-2-V-1 as the Miami Patch, or that hypothesis may crash and burn upon the discovery of new information that unequivocally disqualifies the artifact. That's the way science works. Regardless of how the cards fall for 2-2-V-1, it is essential that we get back to Nikumaroro next summer.

• We need to determine whether the anomaly off the west end of the island is the wreckage of the airplane. Some experts say it's a man-made object, some say it's geology. The only way to know is to go and look.
• We need to do a detailed scuba search for airplane parts in the shallower depths.
• We need to look for a possible initial survival campsite onshore

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TIGHAR Website, writeup regarding the Erhart Project:

http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/AEdescr.html

[bsteadman]

Amelia- Official Theatrical Trailer