Earhart's Plane Found?! (1 Viewer)

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Would it be usual to find a piece of aircraft skin that has been completely detached from it's underlying structure like this ? I can't think of how it might happen unless a human agent removed the rivets. If they did, they made very neat job of it. Given the difficulty of taking all those rivets out, why would anyone bother ?

I'm no expert on airframe construction or aviation archaeology though, not by a long way.
 
Even if it is a part of the relevant aeroplane where's the rest of it? Who's to say that piece hasn't washed up on this reef hundreds of miles from where the aeroplane was lost? Coconuts wash up on the English coast from time to time but nobody thinks they grew here. There are palms that can survive here but the coconut isn't one of them.

I'd need some more convincing that it is a part of Earhart's aeroplane and even more that it is proof of where she went down.

Cheers

Steve
 
There was a good deal of evidence found over the decades that do indicate an aircraft was there at one time. In the late 30's (about 1938 or 1939), a colony was established on the island and aparently, the islanders found and used a good deal of aircraft aluminum from some source. The remains of which, where found in the abandoned village later on.

There was also the campsite found on the far end of the island with artifacts that indicate a castaway was subsiting on shellfish, birds and fish for a while, using a damaged pocketknife and stones as cooking utinsils and bottles were found in the campfire pit that show signs of being used to boil water.

Near the campsite, there was also the skeleton of what appeared to be a tall female of European traits found near some artifacts, which had appeared to have been scavanged thoroughly by the large crabs that inhabit the island.

Quite a few unanswered questions, but they all seem to indicate that there was a situation of a mysterious castaway on the island as well as a plane wreck at one time.
 
Even if it is a part of the relevant aeroplane where's the rest of it? Who's to say that piece hasn't washed up on this reef hundreds of miles from where the aeroplane was lost? Coconuts wash up on the English coast from time to time but nobody thinks they grew here. There are palms that can survive here but the coconut isn't one of them.

I'd need some more convincing that it is a part of Earhart's aeroplane and even more that it is proof of where she went down.

Cheers

Steve

Aluminium doesn't float anywhere near as well as coconuts...
As for whether it is part of her plane, who knows. But it definitely is a sign that an aircraft was there.
 
Aluminium doesn't float anywhere near as well as coconuts....

A piece of aluminium like that could go a long way.

A more substantial quantity, as indicated above, would be a different matter. As far as I can tell that is not exactly the case, nor have any identifiable human bones been found.

Cheers

Steve
 
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I have to politely disagree. Any piece of aluminum that is sheet or solid only goes one direction in water ....... down.
Pure physics.

We don't know how it entered the water or what it was attached to, only how it was found. A flat sheet alone will of course sink, but I could make a good canoe out of sheet aluminium.

Cheers

Steve
 
I have to politely disagree. Any piece of aluminum that is sheet or solid only goes one direction in water ....... down.
Pure physics.
Then apply the physics of wave action, which can move objects underwater, including sheets of aluminum. The dimensions of this particular sheet of aluminum is not all that large and would easily be shifted around by currents, especially wave action in and around the nearby coral reef.
 
Utter BS - there are so many holes in these conspiracy theories you could drive a truck through them. You can't have a partial conspiracy theory. It's all of nothing. The biggest issue that blows any of this out of the water is the fact that in 1937 the closest Japanese garrison to Howland Island was almost 800 miles away.
 
Yep, the most plausible theory is that she and Fred crashed and died in the vast ocean as so many have over the years. I remember something I was told many years ago when I was assigned to the area known as the "Bermuda Triangle"; Pick any "triangle", "square" or "circle" on any ocean you want, the number of "weird" disappearances are the same. Simple fact.... The sea is a harsh mistress,... ships, aircraft, go down. Often with no warning and no trace.
You pay your nickel, you take your chances.....
 

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