HONOLULU (rawstory, Agence France-Presse) — Seventy-five years after Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific, a research team plans to leave Tuesday on an expedition to solve the mystery over the pioneering aviatrix’s fate.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) is heading to Nikumaroro island in Kiribati to try to establish whether Earhart survived the apparent crash of her aircraft three quarters of a century ago.

“She did not go down at sea. She was on land, and we think we know what land she was on, and where to search in the water for what’s left of the plane,” the group’s head Richard Gillespie told CNN Monday.

Here's a link to TIGHAR's web page.

I hope they find something definitive.

Me 2.

It would be nice to solve this one.

Sad way to die. If their theory is correct, 7 days after she landed on a reef, a single scout plane failed to spot her upended plane buried in the surf at high tide. The island had no fresh water, few coconuts and no other overflights or visitors for at least a few months.
Interesting note about this incident: In the aftermath, the Navy made a priority of increasing the frequency range and performance of their airborne navigation radios. By 1942, the U.S. Navy's aircraft were far superior than the Japanese in their ability to navigate; A tactical advantage that made the strategic victory at Midway possible.

Yeah, they could have lived on Fish for a few months or longer as there's plenty of fish in the reef. But the Island is infested with crabs that literally would start trying to eat you if you lie down. Whenever they died they would have known that they were about to be devoured by these things. I saw a documentary where they dropped a fresh pig on the beach to see what could have happened. Within 2 days the pig was gone, ripped up and chunks dragged off into Crab holes everywhere. Not a nice thought at all.

It also makes the quest to find anything remotely like a body impossible. At must they are looking for a scrap of bone somewhere. And after 90 years even getting DNA off anything they find is pretty unlikely.

On the whole, I'm glad I'm not on that expedition.

I'd love to be out there. I find that kinda stuff fascinating.

Me too, until the revelation of the crab infestation and what it means to hoomins what gots to sleep sooner or later.

They can't be any worse than the monkeys in Honduras.....nasty little freaks they are......

These are some seriously ugly-assed crabs (Coconut Crabs).

They should hire them there folks what found the Higgs Boson.

MsDaisy is liking her wasps and skunks better all the time ...

Don't think it's been mentioned here before, but a British colonial officer found a partial skeleton on Nikumaroro in 1940 and the remains underwent a forensic analysis in Australia. Link:

http://www.historywiz.com/historymakers/earhart.htm

Over the years a lot of blame for the tragedy has been assigned to Noonan, who Earhart employed to help her with radio procedures and navigation. Turns out he was pretty incompetent at both. The above link covers some of that as well.

The TIGHAR people have put many years of effort and funds into their search, and I wish them all success.

TIGHAR has a set of bones that are mostly tested (they've run short of funds to complete it) and are having no luck finding a confirmed sample from Mr. Noonan if it turns out the bones are human but not Ms. Earharts'.

That was a documentary of TIGHAR's last trip.

It's an eight day drive at about 8 knots/hour. There probably won't be anything "new" they'll report until the 12th or so.

Yeah it sounded like it. I really hope they finally put this to rest on this one. They seemed very earnest and passionate about finally putting this to bed, and I hope they all do so.

Well no joy this time:



http://news.yahoo.com/earhart-search-returning-hawaii-without-smoking-gun-evidence-005803329.html