Thursday, December 9, 2021

AMELIA EARHART

Photo: Wikipedia
Amelia Earhart with ill-fated Lockheed Electra


Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
 U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Itasca

Photo: Wikipedia
Itascatown settlement on Howland Island


By Vinny Del Giudice

8:43 a.m. - Amelia Earhart to cutter Itasca:
 "We are on the line 157-337. Will repeat message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. . . . We are running north and south on line, listening 6210."

8:44 a.m. - 
Itasca to Earhart: "Heard you OK on 3105 kilocycles. Please stay on 3105 kilocycles. Do not hear you on 6210."

With those words the famed aviator Amelia Earhart and her twin-engine Lockheed Electra vanished approaching Howland Island on a leg of an around-the-world journey on July 2, 1937, based on the radio log of t
he U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca.

The cutter had been posted at the remote site in the Pacific Ocean - 1,700 miles southwest of Honolulu - to provide communications and navigational aid for Earhart and co-pilot Fred Noonan, who were were inbound from New Guinea. Itasca also fired up the boilers, puffing "a heavy smoke screen" to visually mark its position, according to a report by the cutter's commanding officer.

Itasca's reception of Earhart's final radio message was "excellent," according to the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office, but two hours later "it was assumed the plane was down and the cutter got under way at full speed to search the area."

U.S. naval vessels, including the aircraft carrier Lexington and battleship Colorado, as well as commercial ships joined the search, which continued for two weeks with no sign of wreckage or anything else.

"The plane's transmissions had indicated a flight through cloudy and overcast skies throughout the night and morning, and that dead reckoning distance had been accomplished," the historian's office said. "The plane's signal strength had been high and unchanged during the last hour of transmission, and its line of position had indicated that the dead reckoning had run correct."

Amateur and professional radio operators and listeners from the U.S. to Australia reported hearing Earhart and Noonan after the cutter lost contact. There was never official confirmation. Some of those reports could have been misunderstandings or hoaxes. Despite decades of theories, odds are the strong radio signals imply the aircraft simply crashed on approach and sank into the Pacific.

There was a settlement on Howland Island, as part of the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project, named "Itascatown" for the Coast Guard cutter, which made regular supply runs. It consisted of a "line of a half-dozen small wood-framed structures and tents," according to Wikipedia.

Earhart planned to refuel there. The Works Progress Administration provided funds for three graded but unpaved runways called Kamakaiwi Field, in honor of a settler, and alternatively WPA Howland Airport. The settlement was abandoned after a Japanese attack at the start of World War Two.     
 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.