LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Amelia Earhart: Fred Noonan
built 177 days ago
On July 2, 1937, aviation pioneers Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan vanished into legend. The two explorers--Earhart piloting, Noonan navigating--were trying to be the first to circumnavigate the globe at the equator, and they’d made it all the way around from Oakland, California eastward to Lae, New Guinea. On the morning of the 2nd their fuel-heavy Lockheed Electra 10E took off from Lae heading for Howland Island, a tiny speck of coral in the mid-Pacific, where they were to refuel and fly to Honolulu, and thence back to Oakland. They didn’t make it. The US Coast Guard Cutter Itasca, lying off Howland, received messages from them--the last saying that they were flying “on the line 157-337”--but couldn’t establish two-way communication or a radio direction-finding fix. Earhart and Noonan couldn’t see the island, or communicate with Itasca. The messages ended, and that was that.
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Near the end of the trip, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan missed their expected landing on Howland Island in the Pacific, and their fate is still uncertain. Theories include crashing over the ocean, crashing on Howland Island or a nearby island without the ability to contact help, being shot down by the Japanese, or being captured or killed by the Japanese.
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Author Ric Gillespie, drawing on more than five thousand documents relating to the Earhart case, speculates that Earhart and Noonan died as castaways on a remote Pacific atoll. But his book doesn't argue for a particular theory. Rather, it presents all of the authenticated historical references and leaves it to the reader to draw their own conclusions. In addition to details about the Earhart's career and final flight, the book examines her relationship with the U.S. government and the massive search undertaken by the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy. An accompanying DVD reproduces the documents, reports, and technical studies cited in the text, allowing instant review and verification of the sources.
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On 2 July 1937 (midnight GMT) Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae in the heavily loaded Electra. Their intended destination was Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 6,500 ft (2,000 metres) long and 1,600 ft (500 metres) wide, 10 feet (3 m) high and 2,556 miles (4,113 km) away. Their last known position report was near the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles (1,300 km) into the flight. The United States Coast Guard cutter Itasca was on station at Howland, assigned to communicate with Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E and guide them to the island once they arrived in the vicinity.
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Despite her vast achievements in flight, Earhart is best remembered today for her last flight. On July 2, 1937, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, New Guinea, headed for Howland Island about 2,500 miles away. Her airplane never reached the destination, and neither Earhart nor Noonan were heard from again. A number of attempts have been made to locate the missing aircraft or some sign that the pair survived an ocean landing and managed to reach an uncharted or deserted island.
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Long, 77, of Reno, Nev., believes the answer to Earhart and Noonan's fate lies in their radio communications with a U.S. Coast Guard cutter that was tracking their course near Howland Island. Using Coast Guard radio operator's logs, Long concluded Earhart was perilously low on gas because a headwind was much stronger than she had anticipated. One of her last radio calls said she had only a half hour of fuel left and couldn't see land.
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Fred Noonan