Earhart's Plane Found?!

[mikewint]

Noonan, he explained, would have plotted his position by the stars until dawn

Steve another IF ONLY. The Smithsonian guy ignores the following: At 14:15 GMT a faint scratchy radio message was heard and picked up and recorded by Chief Radio Operator Bellarts on the USCG Itasca. Several people heard the call but only Chief Bellarts was able to discern the words: "Cloudy and overcast."

The meaning of that call was ominous and would mean that no Astro Navigation was possible. This in turn means that it is not possible to know the G/S or the wind value and therefore there is no knowledge of progress made, all that can be done is to work from historical data. At 1415 GMT, my calculations show the Electra to be 866 Sm from Howland Island and from then on, over that 866 miles, without Astro Navigation, a ten percent lateral error of 86 miles is possible in theory. The wind was forecast from the east-northeast (058o Magnetic) and their Magnetic steer into Howland was 068o close to Howland. The wind angle on them had been around 10 degrees, so the most that they could have been pushed to the south over 6 hours is around 30 miles.
At 1515 GMT Earhart is calling, and the word "Overcast" is again heard. They are still 736 Sm from Howland. At 1624 GMT, Earhart was heard but very faint and the words, "Partly cloudy," were recorded. All in all, these radio receptions from Earhart indicate that NO positional fix could be made until the sun fix at dawn

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Duly noted and factored in. Joe, I'm not a pilot an therefore some of my terminology may be weird but, I am well acquainted with vectors and taking their components. An airline pilot is concerned with keeping a schedule and therefor when facing a headwind or any component thereof increases the power to compensate for the reduced Ground Speed increasing his Air Speed and increasing fuel consumption. AE on the other hand had no schedule to keep. Howland and the CG were going nowhere therefore she did not increase power but kept to her Long Range Flight Plan of maximum fuel efficiency. This would mean that the Electra's ground speed (ocean?) would be reduced by the headwind or its component. In 1935 Lockheed had issued memo 465 giving fuel/power settings for all Electras and then in June of 1936 a specific memo 487 for Long Range Electras. This was further enhanced by Kelly Johnson (see telegrams) stating that the Electra's best economy was at a TAS of 130 knots or 150 MPH. In nil wind the two speeds are the same and the 2556 miles to Howland take 17.04 hours. A 10mph headwind reduces the G/S to 140mph and Howland is now 18.25 hours away. NOW I do understand that this increased TIME also burns fuel but at a lesser rate that upping the power to keep the G/S at 150mph since air resistance is proportional to the velocity (of the air) squared.

Forecast received at Lae on June 30th:
EARHART LAE
WEATHER LAE AND HOWLAND GENERALLY AVERAGE MOSTLY CLEAR FIRST 600 MILES WIND ESE10-15 HEAVY LOCAL RAIN SQUALLS TO WESTWARD ON ONTARIO DETOUR AROUND AS CENTER DANGEROUS CLOUDY ONTARIO TO LONG 175 EAST OCCASIONAL HEAVY SHOWERS WINDS EAST AT 10 THENCE TO HOWLAND PARTLY CLOUDY UNLIMITED VISIBILITY WIND ESE 15-20 ADVISE CONSULTING LOCAL WEATHER OFFICIALS AS NO REPORTS YOUR VICINITY AVAILABLE HERE
FLEET AIR BASE PEARL HARBOUR

Another forecast received at Lae on July 1st:
EARHART LAE
FORECAST THURSDAY LAE TO ONTARIO PARTLY CLOUDED RAIN SQUALLS 250 MILES EAST OF LAE WIND EAST SOUTH EAST TWELVE TO FIFTEEN PERIOD ONTARIO TO LONG ONE SEVEN FIVE PARTLY CLOUDY CUMULUS CLOUDS ABOUT TEN THOUSAND FEET MOSTLY UNLIMITED WIND EAST NORTH EAST EIGHTEEN THENCE TO HOWLAND PARTLY CLOUDY SCATTERED HEAVY SHOWERS WIND EAST NORTH EAST FIFTEEN PERIOD AVOID TOWERING CUMULUS AND SQUALLS BY DETOURS AS CENTRES FREQUENTLY DANGEROUS
FLEET AIR BASE PEARL HARBOUR

Altogether, the winds are not favorable for the flight to Howland Island. For the reports that did not reach Earhart and Noonan before they left, the Lae Radio Operator, Harry Balfour, continually broadcast these reports to the Electra but did not receive any acknowledgement that they had been heard.

The fuel loads that we know of, and the mileages that they were intended for:
a. Oakland to Honolulu: 947 USG for 2400 statute miles which included a 40% excess range, i.e. 960 "more miles" making the total 3360 statute miles on 947 USG. A telegram from Kelly Johnson of Lockheed to Earhart states that 900 USG is "ample" for this flight and the 40% excess range.
b. Luke Field, Honolulu to Lae: 900 USG for 1900 miles plus a reserve of 200 USG.
c. Lae to Howland Island: 1100 USG (or 1151 USG) for 2556 Statute Miles plus a further 600 miles if the Contingency Plan was invoked and a turn-back for the Gilbert Islands was made. Total would then be 3156. Note that this 3156 Statute Miles requirement is less than the range possible on 900 USG of the Johnson telegram mentioned at a., above.

On the "First Attempt" flight from Oakland to Honolulu, Earhart made notations that were later put into the book "Last Flight" by her husband George Palmer Putnam. In my copy of the book on pages 33-34, there are notations. There is a section of these notes which are for a point 6 hours and 35 minutes into the flight, she writes:

"Harry (Manning) reports we're ahead of the dead reckoning. Noonan is just figuring position. Gas so far is o.k. The ship now flies like an airplane with almost 2000lbs rt up."

The letters "rt" in "rt up" in the print font, are taken from Earhart's handwriting, and her "r" and "e" are similar. Her handwritten note could have been "et up" which means "eaten up" or perhaps in long form, "used right up,". This indicates that at the 6 hour, 35 minute "into the flight point" or at the latest, the 7 hour point, nearly 2000 lbs of fuel have been used which means "nearly" 333 USG gone. At this 6:35 hour point and according to the Lockheed Long Range Plan, the Electra should have used 413 USG. It had to be 333 because it is defined by "almost 2000 lbs" and 433 USG would weigh 2598 lbs while 333 USG would be 1998 lbs. This could mean that Earhart did not use a high power climb-out but "cruise-climbed" at a lower power setting, thereby using less fuel.

For the Electra at Sea Level, Lockheed states that VL/D. at Sea Level for a weight of 9,300 pounds is 11.85: 1 at 110 mph IAS.
For 12,900 pounds it is 11.85: 1 at 120 mph IAS
For 16,500 pounds AUW it is 11.9: 1 at 150 mph IAS.
In comparison, a Cessna 150 has a Lift Drag Ratio of 7:1, a Boeing 747 has an L/D of 17:1.

Mike, all good information but there's another angle left out when we talk about winds - WINDS ALOFT which will generally be greater then reported on the ground. If the winds are 10-15 on the ground usually you'll find them greater at altitude, especially if you have squalls in the area. "Any speculation based on her first flight fuel performance is a guess" for many reasons already given.

 

[stona]

The meaning of that call was ominous and would mean that no Astro Navigation was possible.

At that altitude.

Another critical decision to be made. Do we continue on dead reckoning, seat of the pants, across the Pacific Ocean or use fuel to climb and establish a position?
Nobody has ever disputed Noonan's ability as a traditional navigator and once again, we don't know what they did. Maybe this was another decision that they got wrong.

It raises an interesting question about the dynamic between Earhart and Noonan. The Dakar example is used in a paper I found on line but has no attribution. It analyses the navigation on the Natal-Dakar flight (including blowing some holes in some more of TIGHAR's theories, particularly re: the copies of charts they are flogging which are NOT authentic and may even be falsifying some data).

fer3.com/arc/img/115631.navigationtodakar.pdf

The conclusion is that in fact

"The bottom line is that the Dakar flight provides no help in explaining the final disappearance."

Because the argument that,

"... the reason the Dakar story had relevance to the final disappearance is that it offered an
explanation for why they were unable to find Howland. It seemed possible, at the end, that
Earhart refused, as she had done on the approach to Dakar, to follow Noonan's advice on the
heading to follow that would have taken them the Howland."

doesn't stand up to this particular analysis. Earhart may have made some confusing and contradictory ststements about the flight, but they at some stage made a decision to head for St Louis rather than Dakar, possibly for the Air France facilities available there.

"Most significantly, to the question of whether they accidentally missed Dakar, you can see
on Noonan's chart that there had been a sun line that ran to Dakar on an approximate 21º T
course but this line was erased (but still visible) and the sun line was advanced to 1800 Z to run
to Saint Louis. This confirms that they deliberately hit the coast south east of Dakar and then
deliberately flew to Saint Louis. It's no coincidence that the 1800 Z sun line runs directly to Saint
Louis. and that the parallel line to Dakar had been erased."

Africa is a much bigger target than an island in the Pacific Ocean (few realise just how big it is!) so they could hardly miss it, but there are still some questions raised about the navigation across the Atlantic.

Cheers

Steve

 

[stona]

Matters of opinion.

I've been looking into the famous missing antenna.

First, the only known photograph of Earhart taking off from Lae is of too poor a resolution to form any reasonable opinion, either way. I know TIGHAR has employed an 'expert' to state that the antenna is missing. I don't claim to be an expert, but I have spent many years analysing the details of aircraft in pictures, including searching for masts and antenna wire in a quest for model making accuracy and in my opinion that photograph proves nothing. Have a look for yourselves.
I can barely see the port undercarriage leg in this detail from the photograph, but nobody would suggest that it's not there There are other bits that nobody is suggesting were not there which are not visible in this photograph.

Second, the take off film. Long after the 'puff of dust' when the aircraft is in fact airborne at the 31 second mark I think I can see the antenna masts (obviously not the wire at the resolution of the film). Others may disagree. Have a look for yourselves, there is a link to the film on Tighar's site. The quality is probably even worse than in the one still photograph.
Again, the point is that there is no really good evidence either way. From this you cannot base an entire theory on a missing antenna.

Cheers

Steve

 

[stona]

Can anyone explain why the

"PROCEEDINGS OF A BOARD OF OFFICERS APPOINTED TO INVESTIGATE AND REPORT UPON THE CRASH OF MISS AMELIA EARHART'S AIRPLANE NR 16020 AT LUKE FIELD, OAHU, T. H., AT 5:50 A.M., MARCH 20, 1937, AND CIRCUMSTANCES RELATING TO HER ARRIVAL AND STAY AT WHEELER AND LUKE FIELDS, MARCH 18 TO 20, 1937."

keeps referring to the 'landing mat' at Luke Field? There are several references to it in the report.

I know this can't refer to Marston mat which was yet to be invented, and while I know that various other systems had already been developed in Europe, and possibly the US, I can't see any evidence for it in the photos of the crashed Electra. Nonetheless, the report states,

"approximately 50 square feet of the Luke Field landing mat was damaged necessitating replacement..."

The report is essentially an effort by the USAAC to exculpate itself from any possible blame or legal action by the Earhart team, and this area of 'landing mat' was the only damage to government property.

Cheers

Steve

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Great info Steve!

 

[stona]

To put the 'take off photograph in context, here it is again, in it's entirety

And this shows what we are actually supposed to be missing

You can draw your own conclusions. Tighar's 'expert' concluded that.

"Insufficient Image Resolution. There are objects of similar size to the missing antenna masts that successfully imaged in the photograph. Therefore, it is improbable that the antenna masts are absent from the photograph for this reason.


Obscuration. There is a single object capable of obscuring the belly antenna masts – the fuselage. For the fuselage to obscure the antenna masts, the film plane would have to be near the horizontal centerline of the fuselage or above. It can be observed from the photograph that the film plane was well below the centerline of the fuselage by the amount of the underside of the wing that has been imaged. Further, nearly the complete port and starboard landing gears have been imaged. Therefore, the fuselage could not have obscured the antenna masts.


Missing. Therefore, through deduction, the antenna masts must be missing from the belly of the fuselage."

I disagree 100% with his first contention. There are similar sized details which I can't see, even expanding and messing around with the photograph. I wonder if he has looked at as many photographs of antennae and their masts on less than perfect photographs and films as I have in the last thirty years? I would substitute 'probable' for 'improbable' in that second sentence

His second point is safer, but I don't agree that the fuselage is the only object capable of obscuring both masts. I would like to see an analysis to discount the possibility that the port gear leg is not obscuring the fore mast at this angle. I think it is a possibility which has not even been considered. I have already noted that the much more substantial gear leg is very poorly resolved in the image.

The third and concluding point is a brave assertion. I don't think we can be sure either way, but the crucial lack of anyone finding anything on the field after the departure alone should surely urge one towards caution rather than confidence.
To be fair to the analyst (Jeff Glickman) he has used the word 'probable' in his first point and prefaced his final conclusion with the words 'by deduction', before concluding that the masts 'must be missing'. He is certainly a qualified person and entitled to his opinion. I have a problem with his use of language, the conditional 'probable' and certainty of 'must' seem mutually exclusive, but then two nations divided by a common language and all that

Cheers

Steve

 

[mikewint]

keeps referring to the 'landing mat' at Luke Field? There are several references to it in the report.

In the tropics rain and lots of it would often make landing fields unusable. The solution was to cover the landing field with first a 6 inch thick layer of crushed rock, then use a heavy roller to pack it down, then this layer was coated with emulsified asphalt, and then covered with a second layer of fine stone also rolled down. The resulting "Landing Mat" promoted rapid drainage of rain water.

 

[mikewint]

but they at some stage made a decision to head for St Louis rather than Dakar,

As it turns out AE did make the correct decision. When they arrived at the African coast south and east of Dakar, conditions were very hazy/foggy less than half mile visability. Reaching Dakar which is located on a peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic would have meant either flying into a setting sun in fog and haze or turning back out toward the ocean and then trying to find Dakar with no radio, limited fuel, and fading light. It was safer to turn northeastward and follow the coast to St. Louis.
The French authorities had given Earhart approved routes and they expected her to go where she had said she would go. All of the approved routes across Africa began in Dakar. Failing to land there, if seen as willful disregard of the approved itinerary, might result in the airplane and crew being impounded and fined. If missing Dakar was represented as a navigational mistake, however, especially one for which the female pilot took the blame for not listening to her male navigator, the French authorities might be less likely to hold it against her.

 

[mikewint]

I've been looking into the famous missing antenna.

Steve, yea, I am aware of that contention and there is another one of those "anecdotal" statements made a few years after the flight by an airport worker, that he had found a length of antenna wire at the end of the runway.
R.E. Fullenwider told TIGAR that he "spent some time in Lae during World War Two courtesy of Uncle Sam." As he remembers it, the old-timers there often said they hadn't been surprised when Earhart was lost because "she left part of her trailing wire antenna laying on the runway"

IMHO it is kind of a moot point with all her other radio problems.
Transmitting Antennas
The high-frequency antenna installed aboard the Electra was the dorsal "Vee" type. The original antenna was a total of 46 feet, doubled back onto itself. This length did not include the lead-in wire. This antenna was by itself 15% longer than optimum; but since the radio equipment had been installed by Bell Labs we must assume that it was tuned properly at that time.

While a bit too long for the HF frequencies the 46 foot length was totally unsuitable for the low-frequency 500 KHz operation, as the total length would be miniscule compared to the wavelength at this frequency. At 500 KHz, the wavelength is 600 meters (1968 feet). Thus Lockheed installed the 250 ft long (1/8 wave) trailing antenna in the "from the factory" Electra

Joseph Gurr, a radio technician privately engaged by Lockheed to check out the communications equipment while the aircraft was under repair at the Burbank factory, proposed that if the fixed H-F Vee antenna could be lengthened, it would serve on both 500 KHz and the high-frequency channels. He moved the antenna mast on the fuselage forward increasing the Vee's total length to 54 feet. There was a further slight increase in the length of lead-in, because the location of the feed-through insulator was changed to a point lower on the fuselage side. He also removed the Western Electric loading coil used with the trailing wire – a relatively small value of inductance – and substituted a very large, home-made coil. The extra antenna wire did not bring the antenna any closer to a proper length for low-frequency operation; but it may have been just enough, judging by an antenna-current indication alone, to make things appear to be working on 500 KHz.

This was a serious mistake. For the most part, the transmitter's output power was being dissipated in the coil, rather than radiated by the antenna. Very little R-F was actually going out despite whatever antenna current reading may have been observed.

Any signal radiated by this system on 500 KHz would be extremely weak. To overcome the losses in the loading coil and achieve any meaningful signal output would have required tremendous transmitter power in order to afford being able to waste a lot of R-F – far greater power than the 50 watts produced by the 13 series transmitter. None of this mattered on the final flight as Earhart removed all Morse equipment to save weight. What is important here is whether Gurr's modifications included the removal of the antenna transfer switch as well. One function of this switch was to remove the loading coil from the antenna circuit on H-F. If the huge homemade coil was left in the circuit all the time, operation on 3105 and 6210 could have been even more affected. The coil could have acted like a radio-frequency choke, blocking part of the transmitted power as well as part of the received signal.

The lengthened antenna was now almost 33% longer than the optimum length specified for the 13 series transmitter, in the H-F range. As for 500 KHz, this extra eight feet made practically no difference. At H-F, however, the extra length radically altered the tuning.

The length of antenna plus extra lead-in was now very close to an odd fraction of a resonant length on both frequencies, 3/16 wavelength at 3105 and 3/8 wavelength at 6210 (about 57 feet in each case). The increase in length meant a radical change in the antenna's characteristic impedance at both frequencies. Complete retuning of the transmitter was necessary.

In actual practice, these odd fractions of a resonant wavelength are often difficult to properly match. The reason for such difficulties lies in the R-F voltage and current distributions over the length of the antenna wire, and resultant standing waves along the antenna which cause power to be reflected back into the transmitter rather than transmitted out as RF

The doubling-back of the antenna length in the Vee configuration could have played havoc with the antenna's characteristic impedance, as the two halves of the Vee may have reacted upon each other. Also, a Vee configuration meant that more of the antenna was in close proximity to the metal skin of the aircraft, which could have further affected its operation and tuning.

The transmitter could easily have become so mistuned that power was actually being radiated on the wrong frequencies. If the transmitter were mistuned, the modulation quality would suffer. The signal might become broad and the speech distorted. Indeed, observations were made at Lae, New Guinea, before Earhart's final takeoff which indicated such distortion on 6210 KHz. It would be interesting to know how much deviation from standard tuning procedure may have been taken by their engineers, but available records do not reveal this.

Receiver
Overall, the Model 20 series receiver was, at best, an average radio, built with cost in mind. In terms of the technology of the times, it was hardly the best choice for a flight of this magnitude. It suffered from several design deficiencies.

The most significant was that it seems to have been designed with a view to maximize performance on the lower-frequency bands, 188-420 and either 485-1200 or 550-1500 KHz. This was logical, because in the mid-1930s, many U.S. domestic control towers at civilian airfields were still transmitting on low frequencies below 400 KHz, while listening for aircraft calls on the H-F channels. Two-way H-F was widely employed by the military, but only gradually coming into use by civilian ground stations. The H-F bands in the Model 20 seem to have been an afterthought and these were the two bands that Earhart relied on and used

Antenna Inputs
The antenna input circuit of the Model 20 receivers was designed to accept connections from two separate antennas: one for low-frequency Bands 1 and 2, the other for high-frequency bands 3 and 4.

Normally, the high-frequency antenna would be shared with the transmitter, and connected to the receiver through the antenna changeover relay inside the transmitter. The low-frequency antenna could be a separate structure connected to the low-frequency antenna input. Since the Gurr modifications meant the same antenna would now be used for transmitting on both the L-F and H-F bands, however, it becomes unclear how the two inputs on the receiver might have been used. Perhaps they were simply jumpered together. If so, sensitivity degradation may have resulted from connecting the input circuits for the low – and high-frequency bands in parallel, due to one partially detuning the other; but the actual extent is not known.

There is debate as to the exact nature of the receiving antennas aboard the Electra. It is possible that the dorsal Vee antenna was not used for receiving at all, but transmitting only; and that the receiver was not connected through the antenna changeover relay, but directly to one or more antennas installed on the belly of the aircraft. If that is/was the case THEN we have the theory that the belly antenna was destroyed, when the mast or the wire made contact with the ground during the final takeoff from Lae, New Guinea. This scenario may explain why Earhart seems to have been unable to hear any transmissions from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Itasca at Howland Island, as she approached the end of this leg of her flight.

So while the existence of the belly antenna is an established fact, it may or may not have been employed for communications reception at all due to the Gurr modifications.

Bendix DF
The Bendix D/F package simply used a direction-finding adapter or loop coupler to match the loop antenna into the low-frequency antenna input of the Western Electric receiver.

It seems logical to me that some kind of second receiver should have been incorporated; for if the one and only radio receiver was tied up in direction-finding duties, it would not be available for receiving communications. Thus she could not direction find and communicate at the same time
To further complicate things, in such a system, using only the Western Electric receiver with a Bendix coupler unit, any change of reception frequency and/or antenna functions from communications to D/F would involve complex switchology: changing bands, considerable cranking of the coffee-grinder receiver control head, as well as tuning the Bendix coupler. As a result, given the pressures and consequent fatigue of the long flight, operational quirks of the equipment and Earhart's well known lack of radio acumen, Earhart's attempts at communications and D/F failed.

The Hooven Radio Compass which had been in the Electra did have its own receiver and required no operator input or monitoring once tuned to the desired broadcast frequency. AE only have had to follow an arrow, on a gauge, which simply pointed to the broadcasting station.

Why did Earhart not have any frequencies used by organizations such as Pan American Airways? This is especially puzzling, since by 1937 Pan Am had an extensive radio system, and direction-finding facilities across the Pacific. Fred Noonan had pioneered the Pacific routes for Pan Am and was well familiar with their system. It's also puzzling that the two midway "Guard" ships, Ontario and Swan had NO way to communicate with Earhart. All their equipment was LF and she was HF. AE and Noonan were supposed to visually see Ontario as the flew over it in the dark YET neither ship was fitted with any type of special lighting.

 

[stona]

The French authorities had given Earhart approved routes and they expected her to go where she had said she would go. All of the approved routes across Africa began in Dakar. Failing to land there, if seen as willful disregard of the approved itinerary, might result in the airplane and crew being impounded and fined. If missing Dakar was represented as a navigational mistake, however, especially one for which the female pilot took the blame for not listening to her male navigator, the French authorities might be less likely to hold it against her.

The author of the article makes the point that between them a decision was made to deliberately head for St Louis rather than Dakar. He doesn't believe that Earhart and Noonan had a divergence of opinion, something sometimes advanced as a reason for missing Howland and ending up somewhere else, depending on to which hypothesis one subscribes.

His analysis of Noonan's navigation is based on his scans of the ORIGINAL chart, not that sold by Tighar.

"TIGHAR sells a copy of what it claims is this chart but it IS NOT an accurate copy of the actual
chart, markings have been erased and, even more inexplicably, it has added markings and
notations, so its provenance is suspect."

Which is being quite diplomatic.

Cheers

Steve

 

[mikewint]

Steve, obtained a copy of the original from Purdue. Been going over it myself and trying to follow Fred's methods and it's not easy as he uses judgement as much as observed sightings and actually ignores his own observations when he feels that they are incorrect.
I was hoping to come across some glaring error of Fred's that put them North of Dakar and then AE turning her way North instead of Fred's South recommendation. IT IS just NOT THERE. The story of AE disregarding Fred's navigation advice is pure hogwash. So unfortunately the Dakar navigation sheds no light on them missing Howland.
They had crossed the African coast exactly where she wanted south of Dakar at or near Bathurst WHICH by the way, had an airfield that had been built in 1934. From Bathurst to Dakar was 10 miles or so while St. Louis was over 90 miles. Another point that shocked me was the shape of the coastline. North of Dakar it runs about 040 T while South it tends 320 T. An 80 degree difference. All she had to do was align the Electra with the coast and read the compass to immediately tell if she was North or South of Dakar. So her story is total BS. She WANTED to go to St. Louis not Dakar all along, possibly because of the extensive Air France facilities located there.
So in short AE did cross the coastline between St. Louis and Dakar, only it was from the land side NOT coming in from over the ocean.
I can post Noonan's charts if you'd like to see them.

 

[fubar57]

 

[mikewint]

A lot of truth in that. Was her one chance to learn how to operate the direction finder. There were no manuals, no instructions, and none of the controls were labeled. The press turned it into a photo-op and nothing was accomplished. Noonan could get her close to the island but only the direction finder could actually home her in

 

[MiTasol]

Bones discovered on a Pacific island belong to Amelia Earhart, a new forensic analysis claims

Case closed???
OR
Birth of some more conspiracy theories???

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Bones discovered on a Pacific island belong to Amelia Earhart, a new forensic analysis claims

Case closed???
OR
Birth of some more conspiracy theories???

Another thread is running this.

 

[parsifal]

I don't think there is anything much new here....
Bones Found on South Pacific Island '99 Percent' Likely to Be Amelia Earhart's, Researcher Says

 

[Zipper730]

Fascinating to solve one more puzzle about her.

 

[stona]

"Until definitive evidence is presented that the remains are not those of Amelia Earhart, the most convincing argument is that they are hers,"

That is a very strange thing for any trained scientist to say. Jantz is a respectable and highly qualified anthropologist, which is why I'm so surprised.

It is up to him, or someone else, to provide definitive or at least compelling evidence that the bones are Earhart's, not the other way round. If he had said that his hypothesis, based on his assessment of the bones, which differs from others, is that the bones might be Earhart's I would have been happier. Is he looking for funding? Does he need to raise his or his university's profile? Plenty have jumped on the Earhart bandwagon for less noble causes.

His "most convincing argument" is little more than educated conjecture. I think he would have chosen his words more carefully in a court of law.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Marcel]

Yeah, that's my first thought as well.
But you never know, I don't know this program of his and I saw good results coming from research projects with data that was even more unreliable.