http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303812904577291990571497740.html Hilary has given it her blessing.....! Robert Ballard will be there....... Best of luck to all.
I have seen aluminum alloy that was subjected for a long time to salt water and oxygen. It doesn't last long. If the landing gear part was on the sandy beach and exposed to the surf , it would soon sink into the sand. On solid coral it might last 75 years. If indeed that is an oleo strut from her Lockheed Electra, where did the rest of the airplane go? There would be considerable wreckage still hanging around, like engines.
It could be feasible that the strut was snapped and the rest of the plane continued on for some distance. The circumstantial evidence is certainly there, but will there ever be "definitive" proof? I kinda doubt it.
When I was working at the airport Hollywood was there making a movie and Paul Mantz was providing the airplanes. We talked with him at length about Amelia and he had nothing good to say about her as a pilot. Poor judgment, poor planning, and low piloting skills.
Hillary wrote NASA at age 13 and asked to be an astronaut? [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-1toSSni-k[/ame] .
Interesting to hear that first hand. I've also heard similar assessments from various documentaries over the years. One even went so far as to postulate that it was her promotion of the flight, rather than learning how to fully operate the radio systems, which caused her inability to home in on the Itasca.
OK, so now that I have seen the photo, I must admit I'm pretty skeptical. Seems like a loooooong shot, but I don't know. Ballard DID find the Titanic, etc...of course ships are a heck of a lot bigger than an Electra. I will say that it would be pretty cool to have an enduring mystery at least partially solved.
Poor judgement and planning... yes... She had discarded the 250 ft. trailing antenna before the Howland leg (why?)... when she most likely would need it. Radio reception was hugely compromised. She was flying at only 1,ooo feet... to look for a small island????? Visual radius was tiny (only about 40 mi). Planned arrival time at Howland was 8 AM or so... Sun was in her eyes, further degrading the visual search. Also arriving then, Noonan could only caluculate Longitude (only the Sun was visible), not Latitude... critical. She was sick and exhausted and was trying to 'push' it. Bad idea. Series of mistakes... that compounded... same old story... I too have read a number of disparaging things about her piloting skills.
Agreed. Apparently they had been up for 26 hours or something crazy like that, before even starting the flight! Very poor decision-making. This latest effort seems to be a waste of time and money. Do they not realize that salty water is corrosive? What are they hoping to find??
It may be. As for the salt water, there are plenty of fairly intact WWII-era aircraft sitting on the bottom out there. Somebody in Florida found a Helldiver not long ago and someone else found a flight of avengers a few years back, all in decent nick. Depending upon how it went in, the aircraft could very well be somewhat complete.
