Aluminum Patch From Amelia Earhart's Plane Conclusively Identified

At long last, there is compelling evidence identifying the location where pioneering female aviator Amelia Earhart's plane went down on July 2, 1937. Researchers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) recovered a 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long piece of aluminum debris in a 1991 expedition to unihabited Nikumaroro Island, part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, located about 400 miles (640 km) southeast of Howland Island, Earhart's intended destination. They've recently compared the artifact against a Lockheed Electra being restored in Kansas and yesterday released a bulletin, identifying the fragment as a patch applied to Earhart's plane in Miami at the beginning of her second world flight attempt and pictured in a photo appearing in the Miami Herald.

From Archaeology Magazine (via Obscuragator):

They compared the patch’s dimensions and features with the window of a Lockheed Electra being restored at Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kansas. “Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual,” Rick Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, told Discovery News. He adds that the piece of the plane provides strong circumstantial evidence that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed on Nikumaroro’s coral reef and eventually died there as castaways. TIGHAR will continue to look for wreckage of the lost aircraft, thought to have washed into the ocean, next summer, beginning at a possible site 600 feet underwater.

The folks at TIGHAR have been championing the Gardner Island Hypothesis (Gardner Island is the former name of Nikumaroro) since the late 80's and have conducted ten expeditions to the remote location. In recent years, discoveries at Nikumaroro which included a glass freckle cream jar, a size 9 Cat's Paw rubber shoe heel and a fragment of Plexiglas matching the thickness and curvature of the Electra's window, have done much to bolster the hypothesis — but haven't formed a conclusive link between Earhart, co-pilot Noonan and the island.

Map showing locations of possible evidence. Larger image at TIGHAR

More about the patch from Discovery News:

The patch replaced a navigational window: A Miami Herald photo shows the Electra departing for San Juan, Puerto Rico on the morning of Tuesday, June 1, 1937 with a shiny patch of metal where the window had been.

“The Miami Patch was an expedient field repair," Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, told Discovery News. "Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual."

The most detailed explanation of the researcher's findings can be found at this page on the TIGHAR website.

Fascinating, I've always wondered what had happened to her. Poor gal, let us hope she died in the crash and didn't suffer alone on that island.

The links you provided are quite interesting, I recommend anyone interested in Amelia Earhart to take a quick look.

Wasn't their a theory about her being abducted by aliens? I'm not so sure I buy this...

a reply to: nukedog

There's always a theory involving aliens for every unexplained disappearance!

a reply to: Auricom

I wanted to keep my post concise so I left out a lot, but part of the hypothesis is that Earhart and Noonan survived the landing and later died on the island. It has even been speculated that their remains could have been carried off and devoured by COCONUT CRABS.

The history of Nikumaroro is fascinating. I read up about it a few months ago and it's also the site of a failed attempt at colonization by the British. At one point there was even a US Coast Guard LORAN station manned by 25 men ('44 - '45) living in quonset huts. The biggest reason for the colony's failure could also factor into Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan's demise — a lack of fresh water. Whatever the case, they weren't living on the island a year and a half after their disappearance when the British brought twenty Gilbertese settlers to the island as part of a program, Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme which had the hilariously unfortunate (or deliberate) acronym P.I.S.S. There's a pretty detailed account of the whole affair here.

So yes, this story has it all — Amelia Earhart, giant corpse eating crabs, and a failed settlement leaving abandoned structures!

a reply to: theantediluvian

Fantastic, just the mental image I needed before I go to sleep... Giant flesh eating crabs pulling human remains under the sea...

Anyway, thanks again for the more information. I'm going to give it all a thorough read through when I get the chance.

a reply to: Auricom

Coconut crabs are horrifying.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I've seen them first hand on numerous occasions. They typically seem so timid, I've never tried petting one but I've left them alone and they've done the same. More the reason why the bodies being eaten by them freaked me out!

*Shudders*

a reply to: theantediluvian

I'm sorry I normally go by live and let live, but if I saw that thing in my driveway I'm emptying clips on it. Good lord that thing is creepy!

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Auricom

Coconut crabs are horrifying.

Is that an actual crab or a model?

Bloody thing looks like an alien.

a reply to: MysterX

That's a real specimen. They're a species of hermit crab and the largest land-dwelling arthropods in the world.

Great post

I wonder how this may play into another theory that she and the Co-pilot were later rescued by the Japanese and supposedly either held prisoners and or were executed as possible spies. Now I'm not bringing this up to muddy the waters. But that rumor becomes more feasible if wreckage was found. It didn't have much in proof because previous to this there was no supposed wreckage ever found and it was widely believed they ditched in the ocean and drowned.

Here's a little something, something for those who like Conspiracies...

The Amelia Earhart Conspiracy

More eye-witness accounts place Earhart and Noonan in Garapan Prison on the island of Saipan during World War II, and there may be proof.

In 1944, 7 years after Earhart went missing, US marines overcame the Japanese forces on Saipan. One marine thinks he found crucial evidence during that mission which backs up the eye-witness accounts. Robert Wallack believe he found Earhart’s personal documents in a safe on the bombed-out military base. The documents, held in a briefcase, included Amelia’s passport and visas. If Wallack still had the documents the evidence would be compelling, but he turned them over to an officer, never to be seen again.

The only clues that remain are several questionable inscriptions found in the prison. If Earhart and Noonan were held in Garapan Prison, the big question is ‘What happened to them?’

The eye-witness accounts of their demise are varied. Some say that they were beheaded, others that Earhart died from dysentery and Noonan was shot. Wallack says he was shown to an unmarked grave site by a Saipanese woman who saw a white woman and a man buried there. But it all falls short of physical proof.

Senior officers in the US Navy including Admiral Chester Nimitz were quoted by reporters to have said the rumours of Earhart’s capture were true.

If the eye-witness accounts depicting Earhart as a POW are true it might explain the US Government’s history of secrecy over the whole Earhart mystery.

Another explanation for the secrecy could have it’s basis in yet another theory. Some argue that it was no accident that Earhart ended up in Japanese territory. They believe she was on a mission to help the US Navy gather intelligence and her famous flight was the perfect cover. Spy theorists believe Earhart was recruited shortly after an earlier round-the-world attempt had failed.

She had completed the first leg, flying from California to Hawaii. The second leg would take her across the Pacific from Honolulu to Howland Island but on take-off her aircraft span out of control and crashed. Earhart was lucky to get out alive. The theory is that while her plane was being repaired, the US military arranged to meet her.

Colonel Rollin Reineck, a veteran navigator from the Pacific in World War II, has spent 30 years scrutinising the Earhart mystery. He believes the US military offered to take over the logistics and funding for Earhart’s second round-the-world attempt. But there were strings attached.

Apart from the Crab Monsters it looks so Idyllic.

ive always wondered why people care so much about this...
i suppose it was a tragedy but damn.....let it go you know...

i prefer the theory that the japanese saw them crash and then captured and killed them cause they thought they were spies...
its one of these things that we are never going to know for sure....

a reply to: SLAYER69

The Marshall Islands look to be roughly 1,200 miles away but I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that Earhart and/or Noonan were picked up by the Japanese and transported there. If you look at the region on a map, the Marshall Islands would be the closest territory controlled by the Japanese.

a reply to: CardiffGiant

It's just a long standing mystery. We don't feel the same way about it today as the people that were living in that time did.

originally posted by: nukedog
a reply to: CardiffGiant

It's just a long standing mystery. We don't feel the same way about it today as the people that were living in that time did.

i can dig the mystery....i read a few articles about her yesterday cause i saw this pop up in the news....
i just dont get the people that devote their life to searching for her or artifacts of the crash...all the time, money, etc for what?

nothing better to do i guess

a reply to: CardiffGiant

Yeah idk. Some people chase cars and some people chase downed airplanes I guess. I don't see how anyone could have possibly expected to make any money from this. Personally I choose to believe that aliens got her

a reply to: Soloprotocol

Yes! That lagoon looks like a giant natural swimming pool with a nice beach. Coconut crabs are supposedly delicious and as a matter of fact, they're endangered in some areas where they're considered a delicacy. So on the flip side, you could look at their presence as a perk!

a reply to: CardiffGiant

Solving a 77 year-old mystery that is generally considered to be one of, if not the most famous disappearances in the modern era would be reward enough for some people. Personally, it's not something I'd devote my life too but its good to know that there are people out there who do.