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An unsolved
mystery
Seventy years
after her final takeoff, from Lae in Morobe province, the
disappearance of American aviator Amelia Earhart remains a
mystery. MALUM NALU writes
This year will mark the 70th
anniversary of one of the greatest unsolved aviation mysteries of
all time.
The mystery - that of American aviatrix Amelia Earhart -
intimately involves Papua New Guinea as Lae was her last port of
call before she disappeared somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean.
Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, went missing in July
1937, after leaving Lae for the longest stretch of her
around-the-world flight.
The mystery and a long fruitless search -costing many millions of
US dollars - had begun.
Today, nearly 70 years after her final takeoff - from Lae in Papua
New Guinea's Morobe province - the mystery is still to be solved.
World attention was focused on Lae in 1937, and continues to this
day, when it was the last port of called for Earhart before she
disappeared.
Old Lae residents used to recall entertaining the couple in the
Hotel Cecil the night before their departure, and then seeing them
off the next morning.
Their plane was so overloaded with its eight tonnes of fuel that
it was still barely clearing the waves as it disappeared from
sight, flying east along the Huon Gulf coast on its way to Howland
Island, 4600 kilometres to the north.
On such occasions Lae-ites, regardless of class or social
position, felt they were part of history.
Today, a plaque to her memory stands at the Amelia Earhart Park,
opposite the famous old Lae airport.
Up the hill from the park, at the Melanesian Hotel, the bar is
named Amelia's after this great woman.
For the last 69 years, hundreds of rumours and theories - some
practical but most the products of overfertile imaginations - have
kept the memories of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, alive
for millions of Americans.
One of the popular crank theories is that Earhart and Noonan were
on a spy flight for the US government and were captured by the
Japanese and executed, something that has been vehemently
disclaimed by the Japanese to this day.
Some have searched the sea, believing the plane ran out of fuel.
Others think she survived a crash landing but died on a deserted
island.
The conspiracy-minded claim Earhart survived and lived out her
life under an assumed name as a New Jersey housewife.
There are even bizarre, out-of-this-world urban legends that she
was captured by aliens on a UFO.
To US aviation buffs, she is still 'Amelia' and they talk about
her as though she only went missing yesterday.
The 39-year-old pilot took off from Oakland, California, on June
1, 1937, on what was reported to be her last record flight.
Slim, almost boyish, reminding one of Katherine Hepburn, Amelia
Earhart had been setting records for 10 years.
In 1932, she had set a solo record for her Atlantic crossing and
earned the nickname of 'Lady Lindy', because her slim build and
facial features resembled that of Charles Lindbergh.
A year later, she married New York publishing magnate, George
Palmer Putnam.
A university graduate, Earhart spoke five languages.
When not flying, she spent most of her time on welfare work in the
Boston slums.
Never satisfied with her records, she was always planning
something greater.
This was to be IT - the ultimate in long distance flying!
She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world!
Navigator Fred Noonan, senior navigator of Pan American World
Airlines, was considered as good as any in the United States.
He had already crossed the Pacific 18 times, directing the flight
of the company's famed China Clipper.
Their aircraft, a twin-engined Lockheed Electra, fast and
sophisticated for its day, was well suited to the task.
They had reached Darwin, Northern Australia, 40 days after leaving
Oakland.
Possibly to save weight for the long over-water legs to come, they
had then unloaded their parachutes.
From Darwin, it was a short trip over to Lae.
New Guinea was the departing point for the most grueling leg of
the flight - near 4600 kilometres over water to Howland Island,
the longest ocean crossing ever attempted.
Their destination was a speck of sand and coral in the mid-Pacific
2.5 kilometres long and just under a kilometer wide.
The Lockheed was to be the first aircraft to land on its
newly-constructed airstrip.
"Even with a first class navigator on board, it would be an
incredible feat to find the island by celestial navigation and
dead reckoning alone," wrote Australian aviator and Earhart
researcher Terry Gwynn-Jones in 1977.
"With an error of only one degree in reading, they would miss the
island by 72 kilometres.
"Thus it was that the US government stationed the fleet tug
Ontario half way along the route and the Coast Guard cutter Itasca
at Howland.
"Besides voice communication radios, the Itasca had a radio
direction finder and a radio beacon that could be picked up by the
aircraft's Bendix radio compass.
"Once the Lockheed got to within a few hundred kilometers of the
island, the Itasca could guide them in.
"Or so it seemed!"
Earhart maintained radio contact with New Guinea, and then later
the Itasca and Ontario, until this was lost.
Her last words were: "We are in a line of position 157-337. Will
repeat this message on 6210. We are running north and south. We
have only a half hour's fuel and cannot see land."
The message blasted through loud and clear over the radio of the
United States Coast Guard ship Itasca.
The woman's voice betrayed anxiety.
Quickly, the operator switched to the 6210 kilocycle band and
waited for her call.
It never came.
Her silence was shrouded by the crackling of static interference
out over the vast Pacific Ocean.
Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, was missing.
 
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