- WASHINGTON - The wreckage
of Amelia Earhart's ditched-at-sea aircraft may have been found. High-resolution
satellite imagery of Nikumaroro Island in the southwest Pacific has detected
what may be remains of the plane resting in water within a coral atoll.
Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Frederick Noonan, disappeared in 1937
during an attempt to fly around the world. The disappearance of the flyers
set off a massive sea and air search, personally ordered by then U.S. President
Roosevelt.
Despite a tremendous search effort, no physical evidence of the aviators
nor their plane was ever found.
Most researchers contend that the airplane, depleted of fuel and off course,
crashed in the sea. Both Earhart and Noonan were assumed to have perished
in ocean waters.
Suspicious location
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) in Wilmington,
Delaware, is mounting an expedition next month to help solve the 64-year
old mystery and find Earhart's plane. This time, the team is armed with
imagery taken by Space Imaging's Ikonos 2 satellite.
TIGHAR's 12-year investigation, dubbed The Earhart Project, offers compelling
new evidence which suggests that the ill-fated flight reached Nikumaroro,
formerly Gardner Island. This uninhabited coral atoll is in the Phoenix
Group, now part of the Republic of Kiribati. Islands of Kiribati are low-lying
coral atolls built on a submerged volcanic chain and encircled by reefs.
Five earlier expeditions to the remote island have recovered artifacts,
suspected of being from the lost flight. The upcoming sixth trek is set
to depart Los Angeles on August 24, returning on September 24, said Richard
Gillespie, TIGHAR's executive director.
"There does appear to be an object on the edge of the reef, off the
western end of the island. It's in a particularly suspicious location,"
Gillespie told SPACE.com. There is a rust-colored tint in satellite imagery
pixels at nearly the spot where fishermen visiting that area long ago reported
seeing a wrecked airplane, he said.
"What we've got now is imagery that supports an anecdote. And that's
the pattern that, in the past, had led to the discovery of things,"
Gillespie said. "I'll have divers in the water by early September
in that location and we'll see what's there."
Everything just clicked
Lockheed Martin's Ikonos 2 looked down on the Pacific island on April 16,
simultaneously snapping black and white imagery at 3.3 feet (one meter)
resolution and color imagery with 13 feet (four meter) resolution.
"Everything just clicked," Gillespie said. "We got lucky
is what it amounted to. We got a beautiful day with minimal cloud cover
and a perfect lookdown angle. The imagery just knocks your socks off."
In a technological twist of fate, aviation history has matched up with
space technology.
The Lockheed Martin-built Ikonos may have found Earhart's ditched Lockheed
Electra aircraft, Gillespie said. Space Imaging of Thornton, Colorado,
is a worldwide supplier of the high-resolution Ikonos satellite snapshots.
TIGHAR worked closely with Space Imaging and the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The collaboration led to an affordable
photo shoot that acquired data not only for TIGHAR's use, but also valuable
to NOAA's study of the world's endangered coral reefs.
Thrill of the hunt
Gillespie said that next month's $400,000 expedition is unusually long.
"It's the longest we've had since our first expedition in 1989,"
he said.
Also being checked out on the island are graves. Furthermore, there is
some indication that previously discovered bones on the island -- first
thought as being the bones of a short, stocky man -- may indeed be the
possible remains of a female of northern European extraction that stood
about 5 feet, 7 inches tall.
"That's a pretty good description of Amelia Earhart," Gillespie
said.
"We've got a bunch of things to do on the island. We have the time
and better tools for managing the search with the satellite imagery. So
we're pretty excited," Gillespie said.
The Ikonos imagery is also to be used in helping expedition members navigate
about the island.
"It can save you days of hacking through the underbrush if you know
what the lay of the land is like. The sun can act like a hammer and just
eats up your people," Gillespie said. Coupled with Global Positioning
Satellite (GPS) data, hassle-free treks about the island can be better
plotted, he said.
Using new technologies, coupled with sound reasoning and old methodologies
adds to the thrill of the hunt, Gillespie said. "It's getting those
answers that keeps you going. It's seldom the discoveries in the field
and not like those Indiana Jones movies where you part the bushes and there's
the stone idol or something," he said.
What next?
If actual artifacts are found, other questions follow: What happened? How
did it happen? How long did Earhart and Noonan survive on the island? What
other evidence can be recovered?
"Then, instead of a search location, we have an archeological site
and a lot more work to be done there," Gillespie said.
While discovering Earhart's plane would be the Holly Grail of finds, Gillespie
is eyeing yet another project.
Gillespie wants to find the location of two missing French flyers that,
in 1927, attempted a Paris to New York flight. Those pilots made the trek
some 10 days before Charles Lindbergh piloted across Atlantic waters on
his historic solo flight, traveling the opposite direction.
"The French airplane is another vanish-without-a-trace situation,"
Gillespie said. Once again, satellite imagery is expected to help pin down
a suspected crash site of the two aviators -- perhaps in the cold climes
of Newfoundland, he said.
|
