that they had had at Surabaya would not return now to plague them on
the long over-water flight. For on the leg to Howland the aids to
navigation were limited.
The vast Pacific ruled out immediately the case for pilotage: except
for islands few and far between there were no landmarks she could
follow. The small size of Howland, for all practical purposes,
discouraged the time and distance plotting of dead reckoning. There
remained celestial navigation, with radio as an aid. For Amelia to be
able to hit her target, the weather would have to be clear enough for
Fred to be able to take his fixes from the stars at night and from the
sun during the day. Once over the ocean and more than 500 miles out she
would no longer be able to contact Lae by radio.
To get a radio bearing from Howland, she would have to fly all night
and never waver from her course until early the next morning. Then she
could home in on signals from the Coast Guard Cutter _Itasca_, which
lay anchored off Howland. With the Electra’s loop antenna and the
ability to receive from a strong sending station, she felt that her
chances were good.
Nevertheless, Amelia wished now that she had not ordered the 250-foot
trailing wire antenna to be removed from her plane before they left
Miami. Gladly on the long over-water leg that faced her would she go
through the trouble of reeling out and reeling in: if she had the long
antenna she would be able to contact and to receive from the _Itasca_
from distances much farther out than the loop antenna permitted.
And, as if in fateful conspiracy, Amelia did not know that there was
yet another aid to get to Howland. She did not know because no one had
told her. A high-frequency direction finder had been obtained from
the Navy and installed on the island of Howland; but neither Commander
W. K. Thompson of the _Itasca_ nor Richard B. Black, the field
representative of the Department of the Interior, had advised AE that
the direction finder had been set up to help her.
This lack of foresight and coordination was but the beginning of a
chain of incidents that linked finally to tragedy. Fred Noonan, in
trying to set his chronometers, found that he could not calibrate them
correctly because of radio difficulties on the Electra’s 50-watt set.
With his chronometers reading slow or fast, he knew he would not be
able to obtain accurate celestial fixes. An error of fifteen seconds
on the precision instruments would mean a mistake of one mile in his
position computations, and an error of one minute a mistake of four
miles.
Such position errors, taken into account in giving AE headings to fly
by, might add to the difficulties of the navigation. For a mistake of
one degree in following the compass could take them one mile off course
for every sixty miles flown, more than forty miles off course for the
Howland leg.
Despite these serious problems, Amelia set out to find in the 7,000
miles of the Pacific Ocean the small speck of land that was Howland
Island.
On July 1 the Electra stood poised several thousand feet from the
edge of the cliff that marked the end of the runway. The plane was
fully loaded with 1,150 gallons of gasoline, enough to fly under ideal
conditions the full range of 4,000 miles. A contrary wind, however,
which blew across rather than down the runway, coupled with an ominous
black squall line, conspired to keep the Electra earth-bound for the
day.
Amelia and Fred repacked the plane, discarding every scrap that was
not absolutely needed. AE kept the bare essentials needed for travel;
and Fred, a small tin case which he had picked up in Africa and which,
Amelia was careful to note, “still rattles, so it cannot be packed very
full.”
Restless and disappointed with the day’s delay, pilot and navigator
did more sight-seeing on the island, but with half a heart. They could
not wait to be off and homeward bound.
At ten o’clock the next morning--the second of July on Lae but the
first on Howland--the Electra roared down the 3,000 feet of runway. In
the cockpit Amelia watched the tachometer and the air-speed indicator:
the rpm dial moved forward, and the air-speed needle crossed the red
quadrant into the green, then across the green into the white. The
plane broke cleanly into the air 150 feet short of the edge of the
cliff that dropped to the sea. Amelia pulled up the gear and climbed to
8,000 feet, the cruising altitude.
She spread across her knees the sectional map prepared by Clarence S.
Williams. As usual, all the information was there. She noted the course
directions: a magnetic compass heading of 73°, later to change to 72°,
then to 71°.
If the Wasp engines would continue to purr, and if the navigation could
be correct, or not too far wrong, she would make it. She would be happy
when it was over. After 22,000 miles, thirty stops, nineteen countries,
five continents, and three crossings of the equator, and looking after
100 dials, gauges, and gadgets, and bucking wind, rain, thunderstorms,
and monsoons, she had become tired from strain and weary from the work,
not the pleasure, of flying.
The head winds were strong. A few hours out from New Britain and the
Solomon Islands, directly on course, Amelia radioed her position to
Lae. It was 5:20 P.M. Friday. They were, she said, at 4.33 South
Latitude and 159.6 East Longitude, 795 miles out from New Guinea, and
proceeding on course. Now, she hoped, if she could home in on the
_Itasca_ in the morning, getting home by way of Hawaii would be an easy
matter.
On the _Itasca_ preparations had been made and carried out with
Swiss-watch precision. Commander Thompson had set up his watches--two
men on the ship and one on the shore--and waited. The prearranged
radio frequencies were checked, the higher short wave and the lower
long wave. The limits of the Electra’s direction finder--the loop
antenna--were listed as 200 to 1,500 and 2,400 to 4,800 kilocycles.
Giving her call signals, KHAQQ, Amelia would report in on radio at
quarter past and quarter to each hour, as was her custom when possible
during the entire world flight. Her frequencies for transmitting were
6,210 kilocycles by day and 3,105 kilocycles by night. For telegraphic
code by key, Fred would use 500 kilocycles, the standard frequency used
by ships at sea.
On the hour and the half-hour the _Itasca_ would broadcast weather
reports and forecasts, and homing signals, on 3,105 kilocycles by voice
and 7,500 kilocycles by key.
At 6:30 P.M., Howland time, the first of July, the San Francisco
division of the Coast Guard notified the _Itasca_ that the Electra was
airborne. To make doubly sure that the ship’s radios were operating
correctly, the _Itasca_ tested signal strength with San Francisco,
then tried to contact the Electra. It was too early to establish
communication with the plane.
Listening at two receivers and a loud-speaker, in addition to officer
and enlisted members of the crew, were correspondents from the
Associated Press and the United Press, and the Interior Department’s
Richard Black, whom GP had asked to be his representative and the
coordinator for the flight. The _Itasca_ was standing by and ready.
12:04 A.M. The _Itasca_ transmitted by voice on 3,105 and by key on
7,500, trying to make contact; then keyed the homing signal, · --, the
dit dah of the letter A.
12:15 A.M. KHAQQ was not heard.
12:30 A.M. The ship sent out the weather, repeating twice each part
of the report: wind direction east, force 11 miles, partly cloudy,
visibility 20 miles, calm swell, direction east.
Checking against possible radio receiver difficulty, the _Itasca_ asked
Samoa if the cutter _Ontario_ had heard the Electra; the ship’s answer
was that it had not.
12:45 A.M. KHAQQ was not heard.
1:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent the weather on 7,500 kilocycles by key and
on 3,105 kilocycles by voice. The code was sent at a slowed-down ten
words per minute.
1:15 A.M. The _Itasca_ had not heard AE’s signals. The ship felt that
there was no cause for alarm, for the Electra was still about 1,000
miles out.
1:25 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Have not heard your signals yet; please
observe schedules with key; go ahead, am listening on 3,105 now.”
This transmission was not answered by Amelia.
1:45 A.M. KHAQQ not heard.
1:55 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent the weather on 7,500 kilocycles by key and
on 3,105 by voice.
2:15 A.M. KHAQQ not heard on 3,105 kilocycles.
2:45 A.M. Electra heard on 3,105, but the message was not completely
understood because of the static. AE’s voice, identified by Carey of AP
and Hanzlick of UP, was a low monotone. “Cloudy and overcast,” she had
reported; they were her only intelligible words.
The _Itasca_, having heard Amelia, however indistinctly, now tried to
establish communications with her. The attempt was unsuccessful. Again
checking its own signals, the cutter now broadcast to stations in the
vicinity; its messages were heard throughout the Pacific area.
3:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ reported the weather by key on 7,500 and by
voice on 3,105; wind direction east 8 miles per hour; clear, calm;
ceiling unlimited. Then by key the ship sent out the homing signal, the
dit dah of the letter A.
3:15 A.M. The Electra was not heard.
3:30 A.M. _Itasca_ weather report: Wind direction east, force 8 miles
per hour; clear visibility, 20 miles; calm swell, direction east;
ceiling unlimited.
Then by voice on 3,105: “What is your position? When do you expect
to reach Howland? _Itasca_ has heard your phone, go ahead on key.
Acknowledge this broadcast next schedule.”
3:45 A.M. AE reported in by voice: “_Itasca_ from Earhart.... _Itasca_
from Earhart.... Overcast.... Will listen on hour and half-hour on
3,105.... Will listen on hour and half on 3,105.”
4:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ again gave the weather, then asked: “What is
your position? When do you expect to arrive Howland? We are receiving
your signals; please acknowledge this message on your next schedule.”
4:15 A.M. AE not heard on 3,105.
4:55 A.M. The _Itasca_ heard AE. But her message was garbled and
unintelligible.
5:15 A.M. KHAQQ not heard on 3,105.
5:30 A.M. The ship sent the weather by key and voice; then by key on
7,500 kilocycles, a long line of dit dah’s.
5:45 A.M. AE not heard.
6:15 A.M. Amelia called in. She wanted a bearing on 3,105 kilocycles,
on the hour. She would whistle into her microphone, she said, so that
the Electra could get a bearing. She was about two hundred miles out,
she figured.
6:20 A.M. Commander Thompson called the watch on Howland Island and
told him to get a bearing with his direction finder on 3,105. AE’s
whistle went out; the attempt was a failure.
6:45 A.M. Amelia’s voice broke in; it was clear and strong. “Please
take a bearing on us,” she pleaded, “and report in half-hour. I will
make noise in microphone. About one hundred miles out.”
Her voice was on the air too briefly to allow sufficient time for the
Howland direction finder to take a bearing from it.
7:00 A.M. For the next fifteen minutes the _Itasca_ sent out the homing
signal, both on 3,105 and 7,500 kilocycles.
7:18 A.M. The _Itasca_ broadcast to AE by voice: “Cannot take bearing
on 3,105 very good [sic]. Please send on 500, or do you wish to take
bearing on us? Go ahead, please.”
There was no answer from Amelia.
7:19 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”
The message was not answered.
7:25 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Please go ahead on 3,105.”
There was no answer.
7:26 _A.M._ KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”
Again there was no answer from Amelia. The ship again sent out the A
homing signal.
7:30 _A.M._ KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Please acknowledge our signals on
key. Please.”
Again the request was unanswered.
7:42 _A.M._ Amelia broke in loud and clear. Her voice was high and
frantic. “We must be on you,” she said. “But cannot see you. But gas
is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at
altitude 1,000 feet.”
7:43 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Received your message, signal strength
5. Go ahead.”
Again the ship sent out the homing signal on 3,105 and then on 500
kilocycles.
7:49 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Your message O.K. Please acknowledge
with phone on 3,105.”
7:58 A.M. Amelia called in again. She obviously had not heard the
_Itasca_, for she failed to acknowledge the ship’s message. “KHAQQ
calling _Itasca_,” she reported in; again her voice was loud and clear.
“We are circling, but cannot hear you. Go ahead on 7,500 either now or
on schedule time of half-hour.”
8:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent out a long series of A’s on 7,500
kilocycles.
In response to the ship’s message, Amelia broke in: “We are receiving
your signals, but are unable to get a minimum [for a bearing]. Please
take a bearing on us and answer with voice on 3,105.”
The _Itasca_ probably could have taken an accurate bearing on her if
she had counted numbers rather than whistled. The whistling sound was
too much like static to be distinguished from it.
At 10:00 A.M. July 2, when Amelia had taken off from Lae, it was 12:00
noon, July 1, on Howland, two hours later but one day earlier. At 8:00
A.M. the next day, Howland time, she had been in the air for twenty
hours of elapsed time. If after adding throttle to compensate for head
winds she had averaged a ground speed of 142 mph over the distance of
2,556 miles, she should have been over Howland at the end of eighteen
hours. If she had averaged only 128 mph because of head winds, after
twenty hours she should have been well over the target island.
8:33 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Will you please come in and answer on
3,105. We are transmitting constantly on 7,500 kilocycles. We do not
hear you on 3,105. Please answer on 3,105. Go ahead.”
The message was not acknowledged.
One minute later the _Itasca_ continued: “Answer on 3,105 kilocycles
with phone. How are signals coming in? Go ahead.”
8:45 A.M. Amelia broke in on 3,105 kilocycles. Her voice was loud and
clear, but broken and frenzied. “We are in a line of position 157-337,”
she said hastily. “Will repeat this message on 6,210 kilocycles. Wait,
listening on 6,210 kilocycles. We are running north and south.”
Anxiety drew taut across the radio room of the _Itasca_ as everyone
strained to hear the repeated message on 6,210. Nothing was heard by
anybody.
8:47 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “We heard you O.K. on 3,105 kilocycles.
Please stay on 3,105. Do not hear you on 6,210. Maintain QSO on 3,105.”
The same message was sent by key on 7,500 kilocycles.
The _Itasca_ again heard nothing on 3,105 or 6,210.
8:49 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”
8:54 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Your signals O.K. on 3,105. Go ahead
with position on 3,105 or 500 kilocycles.”
The ship listened for AE’s answer on 3,105, 6,210, and 500 kilocycles.
The message was not acknowledged.
“We are running north and south,” at 8:45 A.M. had been Amelia
Earhart’s last words.
Until ten o’clock on that morning of July 1 the Itasca continued to
call. The operators transmitted on 3,105 and 7,500, and listened on
3,105, 6,210, and 500, and also on 500 of the direction finder.
Nothing more was heard from the Electra.
The decision of the _Itasca_’s crew was obvious and unanimous: Amelia
Earhart was having radio receiver trouble.
Questions abounded. How account for her last report: “We are in a line
of position 157-337”? What was the geographical point of reference for
the line of position? Did she get a bearing from Howland? Where was she
when she made the report?
The answers lay partially in several alternatives: the Electra’s loop
antenna, or radio; the stars before dawn, or the early-morning sun.
The loop antenna, one of the plane’s direction finders, had a
low-frequency limit of 200–1,500 kilocycles and a high-frequency
limit of 2,400–4,800 kilocycles; therefore, it could not receive
the _Itasca_’s homing signal from 7,500 kilocycles, but it could
receive the one from 500 kilocycles. If the line of position 157-337
were determined from 500 kilocycles, then the all-important point of
reference from which it was drawn had to be understood as Howland or
the _Itasca_.
Obviously, AE knew her line of position, but she did not know where
she was north or south on the line. This fact accounts for her “We are
running north and south.” If she had known her exact position, she
would not have conducted the search pattern for the island, nor would
she have asked the _Itasca_ to take bearings on her.
Curiously, the only transmission she seems to have received on radio
was the telegraphed A on 7,500 kilocycles, but she did not receive that
signal long enough to get the aural-null, a minimum of sound for a
bearing.
If neither the line of position nor the bearing could come from the
loop antenna or the radio, there were still the aids of celestial
navigation.
For navigator Fred Noonan, veteran of eighteen previous Pacific air
crossings, it should have been relatively easy to determine position,
if his navigation instruments were operating correctly and if the
weather were clear enough to take fixes from the stars or the sun.
Before dawn on July 3 he could have taken a fix from the stars. But an
error in his chronometer of a mere four seconds would lead to a mistake
of one mile in the longitude of his determined position. If the sextant
were in error, however, the mistakes could have canceled out by the
taking of three observations. Yet it would seem that Noonan could not
shoot the stars, for as early as 2:45 A.M. AE reported the weather as
“cloudy and overcast,” and at 3:45 A.M. as still “overcast.” If that
bad weather continued until dawn, Fred Noonan could not use celestial
navigation regardless of instruments.
Notwithstanding these difficulties, if he saw the sun after dawn, he
could have shot a sun line. But if 157-337 were a sun line, it was
worthless without a geographical point of reference, because the line
could be drawn anywhere on the globe. No point of reference was given
by AE in her last report.
Thus the question persisted: Where was she?
7. _The Disappearance and the Search_
Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan and their plane were lost somewhere
over a possible area of 450,000 square miles in the South Pacific. The
United States Navy was determined to find them.
In Washington Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William D. Leahy
acted quickly and ordered ships and planes to take up the search for
the missing fliers. In addition to the _Itasca_, an aircraft carrier
and its full complement of planes, a battleship, four destroyers, a
minesweeper, and a seaplane were pressed into service. Together these
ships and planes would search for sixteen days an area of more than
250,000 square miles.
Commander Thompson of the _Itasca_ made some quick decisions after
Amelia failed to arrive at Howland. If she had flown to the south, she
should have seen Baker Island, just 38 miles south of Howland. The area
to start looking for her, he concluded, was in the northwest quadrant
indicated by the 337° of her last position report of 157-337.
Also, he was far from abandoning hope. Although Amelia was having radio
trouble, there was every belief that Fred Noonan could make a fix and
yet find Howland. Radio transmissions, therefore, continued around the
clock at the same frequencies, of 3,105, 6,210, and 500 kilocycles.
If Amelia were leaning out her fuel at the rate of 50 gallons per hour,
at the end of twenty-one hours, at 9:00 A.M. on the morning of July 2,
she would have enough fuel left for two more hours of flying time, for
she had had 1,150 gallons of gasoline aboard the aircraft. If, on the
other hand, AE were using fuel at just under 45 gallons per hour, she
could have flown for a total of twenty-six hours--until 12:00 noon, Lae
time, but 2:00 P.M. Howland time. In other words, just as her tanks
were going dry, her chronometer for elapsed time would have indicated
approximately twelve o’clock. The Navy reasoned, presumably from AE’s
point of view in the cockpit, that she could stay aloft trying to find
some island somewhere until about noon.
If she were slightly north and west of Howland, and realized the fact,
she would have tried for the Gilbert Islands; or, if she were even
more north and west, she would have attempted the Marshall or Caroline
Islands; if extremely north and west, the Mariana Islands. The last
possibility was most unlikely.
“If they are down,” George Putnam wired from San Francisco, “they
can stay afloat indefinitely. Their empty tanks will give them
buoyancy. Besides, they have all the emergency equipment they’ll
need--everything.”
That the Navy was unable to find the two fliers defies understanding if
all the conclusions and predications were correct.
At 10:15 A.M. the _Itasca_ steamed north, and a Navy seaplane took off
from Honolulu bound for Howland, to help in the search.
At twelve o’clock Amelia was reported as definitely not having reached
Howland. Her time had just about run out. She was most probably down;
somewhere close by, everyone hoped, either riding the wing of the
floating Electra, or paddling away from it in the emergency rubber
raft. Holding to the first assumption, the _Itasca_ listened for AE’s
SOS on 3,105 and 500, because it was believed that the plane’s radio
supply was by battery and that the antenna could be used from on top of
the wing. The _Itasca_ pressed the search and kept calling the Electra
continuously.
Because only portions of Amelia’s transmissions had been received
during the night, and those garbled amid static, the Navy concluded
that the Electra had been flying through or above thunderstorms.
After her last report to Lae, at 5:20 P.M. on July 2, something had
happened to put her off course. After sunset at 5:55 P.M. and during
the night until sunrise at 6:12 A.M. the next morning, she had somehow
become lost.
The navigation procedures of Fred Noonan tend to confirm this last
view. It was his practice, according to those who knew him, to follow
course and to correct it by taking infrequent fixes during the night;
then, just before dawn, he would correct course for destination by
determining a line of position near the end of the estimated run. This
procedure would allow a flight of about three hundred miles during the
morning without a good fix.
If the compasses had tumbled during the night and if the chronometers
were badly out of calibration, then there were navigation errors
aplenty--especially where Amelia depended on a faulty radio to make her
landfall at Howland.
The seaplane out of Honolulu had to turn back to base because of bad
weather. During the initial part of its 1,800-mile flight to Howland,
however, it constantly received transmissions from the _Itasca_.
Obviously, there was nothing wrong with the ship’s radios.
[Illustration: (map)]
The Lockheed engineers were contacted to find out whether the Electra’s
radio could operate if the plane were floating. Their answer was the
first heavy note of discouragement. The Electra’s radio definitely
could not operate if it were on the water, they wired, because it
needed the right engine for power. But, they added, the plane could
float from the buoyancy provided by the empty tanks for a maximum
period of nine hours. It was now hoped, for radio purposes, that the
Electra had made an emergency landing on land.
The _Itasca_ searched an area of 9,500 square miles without success. In
addition to constant transmission on 3,105 and 500, during the day it
set up a smoke screen, and during the night it played its searchlight
against the sky. These measures were in vain.
On July 7 the battleship _Colorado_ and the minesweeper _Swan_ joined
forces with the cutter _Itasca_. The _Colorado_ with its planes
went south and east through the Phoenix Islands, exploring the 157°
reciprocal of 337° represented in AE’s last reported line of position.
The _Swan_ and the _Itasca_ turned north and then west to the Gilbert
Islands.
On July 9 the aircraft carrier _Lexington_, with 63 planes, accompanied
by the four destroyers _Perkins_, _Cushing_, _Lamson_, and _Drayton_,
sailed from Hawaii. They arrived in the Howland area on the thirteenth
to lend their support to the search. For the next five days the
_Lexington_’s planes logged 1,591 hours looking north and west for the
missing fliers. The planes covered an area of 151,556 square miles
without turning up a trace of the Electra or its pilot and navigator.