• Hello there guest and Welcome to The #1 Classic Mustang forum!
    To gain full access you must Register. Registration is free and it takes only a few moments to complete.
    Already a member? Login here then!

So Randy did they find Amelia?

FordDude

Well-Known Dude
Staff member
Moderator
Mystery of Amelia Earhart Solved? Fragment From Missing Plane Identified.

Researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) revealed that a piece from Amelia Earhart’s vanished aircraft has been identified in Nikumaroro, an atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati. This is the first time that an artifact from the wreckage has been directly linked to Earhart’s last expedition, in which she was attempting to circumnavigate the Earth at the equator, and sheds new light on the 77-year-old aviation mystery.

The 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long piece, found by researchers in 1991, is strongly believed to be a metal fragment installed on the window of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra aircraft during her eight-day stay in Miami, which was her fourth stop on the journey. A photograph on TIGHAR’s site from The Miami Herald, dated July 1, 1937, shows the aircraft intact with the metal patch.

Once the patch was identified in the photograph, researchers compared the patch with that of the Lockheed Electra aircraft at Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kansas, according toDiscovery News. It matched the plans and the Electra’s structure. According to TIGHAR, the patch was a field modification whose “complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual.” The sheet’s purpose was for the pilot to be able to take in “celestial observations” from thousands of feet in the sky.

The pilot, whose plane seemingly dematerialized on July 2, 1937, has prompted a wide range of conspiracy theories, including the speculation that Earhart assumed a new identity on a remote island in the Pacific. The new discovery debunks the wide belief that Earhart and Fred Noonan, her navigator, didn’t actually crash into the Pacific Ocean. TIGHARsuggests the the pair had to make a forced landing on the coral reef of Nikumaroro after running out of jet fuel roughly 350 miles from their destination, Howland Island.



http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ment-from-missing-plane-identified/ar-BBbVCrA

BBbVmZz.img


fd
 
Boy, did they botch that article's content. The sheet's purpose was to replace a window used for celestial observations that had been installed for Earhart but that window yielded some structural damage of the airplane due to the removal of stiffeners.
 
Like I said, sometimes you can't believe all that you read on the Internet or newspapers.
 
Why the cryptic answers, Randy?

I read somewhere yesterday that the piece of metal written about was determined to be off another aircraft a long time ago. Hmmm?

I also read that the TIGHAR guy is known to embellish stuff while seeking contributions. Apparently he is not too popular in some circles. Just what I read. I don't know jack about any of this.
 
I'm not being cryptic...the article had a lot wrong with it.

The piece of metal was collected circa 1991, and numerous attempts have been made to match it and the rivet patterns to any aircraft thought to have been in the general area of the central Pacific including those during WWII. No match has been found, including AE's aircraft with the exception of the window patch. The idea that it came from the window patch was suggested about 1.5 years ago, and it took this long to do the analysis of whether the rivet patterns matched the stringers inside the aircraft and comparison to very poor photographs of the window patch itself.
 
Back
Top