Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries: There are always mysteries and rumors everywhere on earth.
By: GaEun 8.3
Although it has been almost 90 years, Amelia Earhart’s disappearance is still a hot issue.
On 2nd July 1937, during a flight to circumnavigate the globe, Amelia Earhart, a female pilot aged 40, and her navigator, Fred Noonan, mysteriously disappeared. There have been a lot of assumptions about their disappearance however the truth is yet not found.
Amelia Earhart’s life
Amelia Mary Earhart was born on the 24th of July 1897, in Atchison, Kansas. Amelia, as a child, showed an adventurous, valiant persona. Although from a young age, Amelia encountered discrimination for being a girl, she defied gender inequality and enjoyed doing things that boys preferably liked.
When WWI struck, Amelia was sent to Canada as a Red Cross nurse’s aide, and there, as she spent watching the soldiers, she developed a passion for becoming a pilot.
After the war, Amelia returned to Columbia University as a pre-med student, however, after she noticed that she wanted to become a pilot, she decided to take flying lessons.
Amelia took her first flying lesson in January 1921, with a female flight instructor, Neta Snook. And soon, later that year, she got her first airplane which she named “the Canary”.
In December 1921, with hard efforts, Amelia passed her first flight test, and in 1922, she became the first woman to fly above 14,000ft alone. Her progress did not end here. 1923, she became the first to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1932, she even became the first woman to fly across North America solo.
Amelia was not only working hard as a pilot, but she also consistently advocated feminism. In 1929, Amelia helped to form the Ninety-Nines (an international organization of female pilots), and even right before she took off her final flight, she wrote to her husband, “I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
What Happened to Amelia Earhart?
On June 1, 1937, Amelia took off from California to attempt an eastbound flight around the world in a twin-engine Lock-heed 10Electra, which allows roughly 1000 pounds of fuel max, with her navigator, Fred Noonan. The journey was estimated to take about 40days, starting and ending in California.
As soon as Amelia took off, Harry Balfour, the radio operator for Guinea Airways in Lae, noticed that the headwinds were stronger than expected (headwind speed could affect gas consumption, plane speed, and the length of the journey). Therefore, he sent transmissions to Amelia, mentioning the following information, however, as if it had been blocked, Amelia did not seem to receive these transmissions.
It was about 22000 miles into the journey that Amelia noticed that she almost ran out of gas. There were only 97 gallons of fuel remaining, and Amelia was expecting to stop 256miles away from Howland Island to refuel.
Fortunately, the Coast Guard's Itasca of Howland Island was able to be in touch with Amelia and send transmissions to her. However, with a transmission saying, "We are on line 157, 337, we will repeat the message, we will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles, wait," they had not received any more transmissions from her. After the Itaska noticed that Amelia had not arrived at Howland Island, they searched all over the waters but nothing was to be found. What could have happened to her?
Theories
Theory 1: There are many theories about this incident, but the most believed theory is that Amelia and Noonan ran out of gas and died the Northwest of her destination, where the Itaska was unavailable to search. It is predicted, Amelia’s plane sunk at the bottom of the ocean floor, which is about 18000ft under surface, and is still yet to be found. But the doubts of this theory are that, although, from 2002 to 2017, a company called Nauticos searched underground 2000 square nautical mile area of the Pacific Ocean floor, where Amelia’s plane could have sunk, not even evidence of her plane has been found.
Theory 2: Another theory is that Amelia and Noonan found an island (Nikumaroro) near where she was, and landed there. A British Colonial Officer supported this claim, by finding signs of a campsite as well as a sextant (an instrument for determining the angle between the horizon and a celestial body to figure out the latitude and longitude) and a partial human skeleton on the island. However, according to D.W. Hoodless, who analyzed the bones, it is determined that the bones belonged to rather a European descent. And since Hoodless discarded the bones after, it is no longer available for the others to analyze again.
Theory 3: The third theory is that Amelia was a spy of the US, and rather than going to Howland, she went to the Marshall Islands, which were occupied by Japan at the time, for reconnaissance. Some assume that Noonan and Amelia were eventually killed, while others believe that they could have escaped back to the U.S using a fake identity. Rollin C. Reineck, a retired U.S air force colonel, substantiated this claim by saying, “if she couldn't find Howland, Plan B was to cut off communications and head for the Marshall Islands and ditch her airplane there.”
Conclusion
There are more theories and assumptions about Amelia’s disappearance but the case is still yet open. What could be the truth behind this mystery? Would it be left as an unsolved mystery forever? No one knows and no one may know the truth behind this mysterious incident except for the two missing pilots.
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