Amelia Earhart (10 page)

According to author Vincent Loomis, Earhart and Noonan agreed to retire early since they had an early morning takeoff. Noonan, however, decided to spend the night with his new friends, making it back to his hotel room only forty-five minutes before Earhart was knocking on his door to alert him that they would be leaving in two hours. Loomis referred to statements by Noonan's drinking partners that the navigator complained about Earhart's “strenuous pace.”

At 6:00 a.m. on July 1, Earhart and Noonan went to the radio station. Balfour was already there and handed her several messages. One of them was a flight forecast that had emanated from Hawaii. According to the information, they would be facing headwinds of less than twelve miles per hour.

Noonan looked tired and peaked, and researchers claim he was feeling the effects of a hangover. At least one eyewitness maintained that Noonan was sober prior to takeoff, but the same eyewitness also confessed to having at least one drink with Noonan the previous evening. It was reported that when Noonan showed up that morning he told Earhart that he had a bit of a hangover. She was reputed to have called her navigator a “naughty boy.” Collopy later stated that Noonan got only one hour of sleep before taking off from Lae.

At 6:35 a.m. on Thursday morning, July 1, Earhart started up the Electra for a test flight. She checked the radio transmitter, called the Lae station on 6,210 kilocycles, and satisfied with the results of the tests, lifted off at 7:05. She noted that the exhaust analyzer was functioning, as was the Sperry gyro. All of the other problems had apparently been taken care of.

After landing, the Electra was fueled to the maximum for the 2,556-mile flight to Howland Island. Earhart and Noonan expected to be in the air for eighteen hours. Because of the full complement of fuel they were carrying, Earhart deemed it necessary to reduce the weight of the Electra by removing all nonessential items to lighten the load. These included smoke bombs, flares, tools, spare parts, books, clothes, suitcases, and a number of personal belongings. They gave most of the items to several Lae residents.

Earhart went to the radio station and gave Balfour a number of charts and other items she did not feel were important enough to keep. A more recent forecast informed her of headwinds now predicted at a bit less than fifteen miles per hour. Noonan was finally able to get an accurate time check from a nearby station and found that his chronometer was three seconds slow.

Later, Balfour commented that he found it hard to believe that a flight such as this was to be undertaken “with so little regard for proper use of the radio and with an incapacitated navigator.”

A
few minutes before 10:00 a.m., Lae, New Guinea, time on July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart, accompanied by Fred Noonan in his specially constructed compartment located several feet behind the cockpit of the Electra, taxied from the hangar toward the relatively short runway, only 3,000 feet long. The aircraft's carrying capacity was stressed with 1,100 gallons of fuel that should see them through the nineteen-hour flight to Howland Island, the next scheduled stop. It was the Electra's heaviest load since the beginning of the trip. Earhart researchers and experienced flyers have commented that the Electra was nearly 50 percent overloaded at the time of takeoff. At Howland, Earhart would refuel from tanks of gasoline that had been stored there for that purpose by the U.S. Navy.

Prior to boarding the Electra, Earhart cabled the U.S. Navy's auxiliary tug
Ontario
to send a series of Morse code
N
's at ten minutes past each hour on 400 kilocycles so that she could take radio bearings on the ship with her radio direction finder when she was in the area. She never received a signal, but it remains unclear whether or not she listened in on the Bendix at all.

The Electra assumed a position in the northwest corner of the grass field. Earhart pointed the nose of the plane toward the southwest and the far end of the strip in order to take advantage of a light wind blowing from the ocean. The strip terminated at the edge of a bluff that rose nearly vertically from the shoreline. Beyond lay the shark-filled waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Earhart checked the instrument panel and revved up each engine. Satisfied that everything was in working order, she levered the engine throttles full forward and released the brakes. The Electra accelerated down the runway. A smoke bomb had been placed at the halfway point for reference. The Electra was moving at just over sixty miles per hour as it passed. From this point on there was no backing off; the plane needed to lift off the runway or suffer the potential consequences of falling to the rocky shore at the bottom of the bluff.

At 10:00 a.m., July 2, the Electra took off from the Lae airfield. They had only three more scheduled stops to complete the flight around the world: Howland Island, Honolulu, and Oakland. Nearing the end of the runway, the wheels rose a few inches off the turf. The takeoff time was logged at 0000 Greenwich Civil Time (GCT).

The plane was off the ground, but the speed was too slow for an optimum climb. As the Electra passed the edge of the bluff, Earhart allowed the plane to drop gradually until it was only six feet from the surface of the ocean. The landing gear was retracting, and once the wheels were secured in the nacelles, some amount of the drag was reduced. Earhart worked the controls, and the airspeed gradually increased. The plane climbed slowly. When it was at least two hundred feet in the air, Earhart oriented the craft to a 073 heading on a direct line for Howland Island. Gradually the plane rose to a cruising altitude of four thousand feet. According to Noonan's calculations, they would arrive at their destination at daybreak the following morning. Noonan would be employing celestial navigation, that is, taking sightings on the stars until such time as they arrived at Howland Island.

After the Electra was out of sight, Balfour received a new forecast, one that included an update on the headwinds. Instead of the less than fifteen miles per hour that had been communicated earlier, the new forecast called for winds of 26.5 miles per hour. This would alter the Electra's flight time from eighteen hours to nineteen.

When the Electra was finally in the air and well on its way across the wide expanse of Pacific Ocean, the radioman at the Lae airfield radioed the U.S. Coast Guard cutter
Itasca
that everything was on schedule. The
Itasca
was holding a position just off Howland Island. Its responsibility was to provide communications, radio direction finding, and weather reports to Earhart. The crew of the vessel would also assist Earhart and Noonan with the refueling and maintenance. Further, the captain of the
Itasca
would keep all other stations apprised of Earhart's progress. Another ship, the U.S. Navy tug
Ontario
, was holding a position halfway between Lae and Howland Island. The responsibility of the
Ontario
was to make weather observations and provide reports as well as transmit radio homing signals for Earhart.

The Electra faced headwinds somewhat stronger than originally anticipated. Given the headwinds and the 157 miles per hour optimum true airspeed, Noonan calculated a ground speed of 142 miles per hour. Everything was still on schedule.

Before leaving Lae, Earhart made arrangements to transmit at eighteen minutes past each hour and to listen for messages from Lae at twenty minutes past each hour. Harry Balfour, the radio operator at Lae, provided reports of the stronger-than-expected and gradually increasing headwinds at 10:20, 11:20, and 12:20 local time, but Earhart never acknowledged him. The only response heard from Earhart was received at 0418 GCT (2:18 local time). Earhart, using the daytime frequency of 6,210 kilocycles, reported, “Height 7,000 feet, speed 140 knots.” Because of what was determined to be local interference, much of the rest of her message could not be understood, though a reference to Lae was heard as well as the comment, “Everything OK.” Earhart also transmitted that she had increased her air speed to 161 miles per hour in order to compensate for the stronger headwinds. Her next transmission was at 0519 GCT: “Height 10,000 feet. Position 150.7 east, 7.3 south. Cumulus clouds. Everything OK.”

According to experienced pilots, maximum altitude for optimum fuel efficiency in the equatorial regions is two thousand feet below the recommended pressure altitude. It is presumed that, because of the presence of cumulus clouds (potential storm clouds), Earhart lifted the Electra to ten thousand feet in order to pass over the strong updrafts and eddies associated with the storm. The weight of the plane at this altitude would thus force Earhart to burn a significant amount of fuel to climb to and cruise at that altitude. The inefficiency related to fuel consumption could have a potential impact during the latter stages of the flight.

The position reported by Earhart placed her less than 220 statute miles from Lae and just over 450 miles from where they should have been assuming the original schedule had been maintained.

Earhart's 0618 GCT report did not arrive at Lae. The next transmission was at 0718 on 6,210 kilocycles: “Position 4.33 south, 159.7 east, height 8,000 feet over cumulus clouds. Wind 23 knots.” This position was 850 miles from Lae, and they remained on a straight course for Howland Island. According to a variety of analyses of Earhart's transmissions in the years since her flight, it has been determined that her reported position at 0718 GCT was not where they were. In fact, given the schedule the Electra was maintaining, it was a position they would have been in one hour earlier. Earhart's transmission signals on 6,210 kilocycles had been strong both before and after her 0618 report. A handful of analysts have suggested that there was a delay between the time she sent the transmission and the time it was received by Balfour at Lae. Others have suggested that Noonan's position calculations were in error. Both explanations stretch the bounds of credulity. The truth is, a satisfactory explanation for the discrepancies in reporting and receiving time remains elusive to this day.

Given the headwinds along with the increased speed necessary to deal with them, the Electra would have just barely enough gasoline to get them to Howland Island. Having passed the worst of the cumulus cloud buildup, Earhart dropped to an altitude of eight thousand feet. This was still too high for optimum fuel efficiency.

Nothing was heard from either Balfour or the
Itasca
by Earhart during her scheduled 0815 GCT transmission on 3,105 kilocycles. It can be presumed that at 0910 GCT, Earhart listened for the
N
's that were to be broadcast on 400 kilocycles. The log of the
Ontario
never showed that the
N
's had been sent at that time or ever. At 1500 GCT, the tug, running low on fuel, set a course for American Samoa.

By 1000 GCT, the Electra was more than halfway to Howland Island. They were now past the point of no return. To turn around and head back to Lae would now be just as risky as continuing on to Howland Island, if not more so. They were now flying in the dark.

At around 1030 GCT, Earhart spotted some lights on the water. She reported “a ship in sight ahead.” The ship was the SS
Myrtlebank
out of Auckland, New Zealand, and commanded by Captain Cort J. Holbrook. The position of the
Myrtlebank
at the time was eighty miles south of Nauru Island, for which it was bound. The officer in charge of the radio station at Nauru Island, Harold J. Barnes, logged in Earhart's message and responded over the island's 3,105 kilocycle radio. The
Itasca
heard the transmission, but if Earhart did, she did not respond.

By the time the Electra reached the
Myrtlebank
, it had traveled 1,414 statute miles in a period of ten and one-half hours. Howland Island still lay 1,142 statute miles away with an estimated flying time of eight and one-half hours. The revised estimated arrival time would be 1900 GCT.

At 1415 GCT, Earhart was nearing the Gilbert Islands. She transmitted her message at fifteen minutes past the hour on 3,105 kilocycles. The earlier strong headwinds had taken a toll on the fuel supply, but with four hours to go before reaching Howland Island, the amount of remaining fuel should have been sufficient.

At 1515 GCT, Earhart transmitted: “Itasca from Earhart. Overcast. Will listen on hour and half-hour on 3,105.” At 1623 GCT, she transmitted her report, stating that it was “partly cloudy.” They were 354 miles from Howland Island.

Before long, Earhart and Noonan would be greeted by the morning sun. During these early days of navigation, it was common for a navigator to plot a sun line—a single line of position from the sun plotted on a chart at right angles to it. The sun line would, with a fair degree of accuracy, update their position along an east-west course, but it was not particularly helpful relative to providing information pertinent to their maintaining the intended course directly to the island or veering off to the north or south. Because Howland Island was so small, any slight deviation from the intended course could cause the Electra to fly past it without Earhart or Noonan seeing it.

The way to compensate for a problem such as this was for the navigator to make a decision about the maximum distance it was reasonable for the plane to be accidentally off course to the north or south. The navigational term for this is the “area of uncertainty.” The navigator would make a choice to veer either north or south from the presumed direct course. When the sun line of position indicated that they had progressed eastward as far as Howland Island, the pilot would then turn in the appropriate direction (north or south, depending on which direction the navigator chose to veer from the main course), and then, theoretically, fly directly to the intended destination, in this case, Howland Island. Flying the extra off-course for miles would delay their arrival time to around 1912 GCT.

By 1715 GCT, the Electra was running on the last of the fuel supply—a wing tank that carried ninety-seven gallons. Both engines could run off of this tank. With a fuel consumption rate of twenty gallons per hour, they would be able to remain airborne for another two- to two-and-a-half hours.