WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The disappearance of Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.840 Thinking Sideways is not supported by being a player. Instead, 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.960 it's supported by the generous donations of our listeners on Patreon. 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.000 Visit patreon dot com slash thinking sideways to learn more 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:20.720 and thanks Thinking Sideways. I don't understand you never know 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.160 stories of things we simply don't know the answer too. 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.400 Hi there, Welcome again to another episode of Thinking Sideways. 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:40.320 I'm your host Joe, joined as always by Devin and Steve. Alright, 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.600 so we're gonna talk about a really fun mystery this week. Um, 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.240 we're going to talk about Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:52.400 and what happened to them possibly maybe there. Yeah, So 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.840 I'm sure you've heard about Amelia, but if just in 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.520 case you haven't, I'll just give you a brief rundown. 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:01.080 She was an early female pioneer of aviation, and and 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.160 she flew across the Atlantic for example, I think the 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.800 first woman to fly across the Atlantic. And she was 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.280 on I once you disappeared, she was on a round 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.080 the world flight. She would have been the first woman. Yeah, 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.119 I like, you just sound very unimpressed, Like I guess 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.120 she was. I don't know if she was important female 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.880 figure history. Probably what she was trying to do is 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.759 that we're trying to give just a real brief because 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.280 there's so much to the story. I think it's probably 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.880 on your kid. Yeah, yeah, I mean if you go 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:33.680 to a wiki page, you can read all about her life, 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:35.360 so by all means to do that if you want to. 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.320 But yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh. And also Fred and 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:41.120 Inden was her navigator. He was considered one of the 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:45.199 best navigators around. And uh. He was also a licensed 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.480 ship captain, had a ton of experience with marine and 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:52.200 then flight navigation. Excuse me, what's that is? Maybe? Oh 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.640 that's true. You might still be alive. Yeah, okay, sorry 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.360 about that. Uh. And yeah, and the alien Fred, if 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:04.480 you're out there listening, drop us a postcard. Souse, I know. Anyway. 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.360 On July nineteen thirty seven, Heat and Amelia were heading 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.400 out over the Pacific Ocean on their third to the 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.440 last leg of their round the World trip. Yeah, and 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:16.359 they're going to try to find a tiny little piece 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.760 of land called Howland Island. Um, you can find it 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.040 on Google if you want. Well, I mean, probably go 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.359 any further. I want to acknowledge that this was suggested 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.919 by a couple of people, Ash and also Jeremy Right, 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.919 so thanks guys. A long time ago, ye, quite a while. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.640 one of our first suggestions, I think. Yeah, well, okay, 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.240 the round world. The Round the World trip began in Oakland, California, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.560 went eastward in ninety seven. People had already flown around 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.280 the world, so Amelia decided to set herself apart by 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.240 following an extra long twenty thousand mile equatorial route and 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.079 also being female and also that too. Yeah. Yeah. She 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.640 got financing for Purdy University and Lockeed Aircraft built her 0:02:54.639 --> 0:03:00.240 a custom lock heat Electric ten airplane, which yatom mean. 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:02.480 But on the other hand, like, don't you want the 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.320 model that's been tested? Yeah, you never, you never use 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.840 first use. I'm not sure how long the lock the 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.280 elector had been around at that time. Well, but even 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.280 if you just add an extra fuel tank, you want 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.359 one that's been around a couple of times. Yeah, that's 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.239 my rule at least. Yeah, so, yeah, the extra big 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:21.919 fuel tank was one thing. But but what strikes me 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.160 as strange about this is that they didn't incorporate a 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.680 navigation dome. What's a navigation dome? Because in the old days, 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:30.920 before they had all this fancy stuff, that we had 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.040 these days. You had to use a sextant and like 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.320 like when you're flying at night, actually get a fix 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.040 on a star skylight on the top of the plane. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.080 Basically bubbles like I have a sperit glass bubble that 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.040 they built into the tops of a lot of planes 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:45.800 back in those days. And why they didn't build one 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:47.680 into this plane, I don't know, but it would have 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:49.800 been a good idea for fun. I think because they 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.200 were they were relying on the technology they had of 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.840 the new radios and stuff like that they thought. I 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.160 don't think they felt like they needed first Yeah. Yeah, 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.480 it seems like they were going to use radio direction 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.560 finding technology in this particular little thing of Amelia's, but 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.520 it didn't really work out too well. Was there is 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.920 there some consideration for aerodynamics as well? Like were they 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.560 trying to make the plane more aerodynamic? It's conceivable, I 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.120 don't know, to extend the fuel life. Yeah, I don't 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:21.680 think that's a good question. Yeah, the first try this 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.320 this actually was her second try at around the world thing. Yeah, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.560 she tried one time before and she flew from Oakland 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:34.560 to Honolulu successfully and yeah, so that means that she 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.920 was flying east to West instead of what she ended 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.760 up doing in the end, which was flying yeah, exhausting east. Yeah, 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.839 in halleluluh. She was taking off her second leg and 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.440 she had an unfortunate incident. There's still a little controversial. 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.760 She ground loops essentially, which meant that on takeoff, one 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.159 wingtip caught the ground and she just sort of spun 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.599 around and did a huge amount of damage to her plane. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:00.920 Did it? Did it spin around? Always got the impression 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.719 that the ground loop is where one hits and then 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.760 you know, it's the equal and opposite reaction. It pushes 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.799 it the other way, and so they waggle back and forth, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:11.880 because you've seen plane. I've seen planes doing that when 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.919 they're taking off and they'll they kind of one tip 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.680 then the other wing tip back and forth on their 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.640 central accesses. No, it's actually it's defined as a rapid 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:26.840 rotation of a plane and in the horizontal plane. Oh yeah, 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:28.760 So my impression is it's like one wing gets caught 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.919 basically pivots. Yeah, okay, okay, that's then that's where I 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.120 misunderstood it. Yeah. Anyway, the plane was severely damaged. It 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.479 had to be shoot back to California to be fixed 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.320 and Uh, and it's controversial. I mean, I mean a 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.800 lot of damage. Yeah, Amelia claimed that her right tire 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.160 blue out, which may or may not be true, and 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:53.279 other people who blame pilot error. So there, she's controversial, 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:54.760 and it might there might be a certain amount of 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:56.839 bias with some of these people who said that she 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:58.880 was not so hot of a pilot after all. But 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.320 it's a lot of problems with the stories that people 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.440 are holding back because either they think she because she 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.239 was a woman, she wasn't a good pilot, or because 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.680 she was a one woman pilot, they don't want to 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.760 point out any of her flaws and her ability. Yeah, 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.360 it's a weird it's a weird catch twenty two. Yeah, 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.440 it kind of is. Oh. And also there was some 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.560 mention in the story at the end of nineteen thirty 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.120 seven that supposedly Fred Noonan told his wife he had 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:28.080 just recently remarried, told her about the blowout, if it 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.800 was a blowout, that he didn't think it was an accident, 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.120 he thought it was sabotage. Yeah, but I'll talk about 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:36.960 I'll talk a little bit more about this article. It 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:40.640 was in True magazine. I think that's probably what should 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.000 not be called it's a pretty liberal article. Yeah, okay, 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.040 anyway back to the second one, back to our trip. 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.400 The second of her second attempt, second try, they leave 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.920 Local for Miami, and then at Miami they made the 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.440 faithful decision to remove their trailing antenna, which really might 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.840 have saved their bacon later, Joe, what's the trailing in? 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.520 I'll just do that for this entire episode. Yeah, I was. 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.680 I was going to explain that a trailing antenna is 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:07.880 something that you in those days at least, antenna's were 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.200 less sophisticated, so generally speaking, and I'm not an expert 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.440 on radios at all, but my understanding of this is 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.400 that in order to broadcast on the five Killer Hurts band, 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.880 which is a marine distress band, I think you have 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.160 to have it. You have to have an antenna of 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.240 a certain length, and would be too much a longer 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.120 antenna than you can actually accommodate inside or mounted on 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.720 the fuselage of it. So it's gotta be longer. So 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.040 what you do is it's a it's a long and 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.440 wire antenna with a lead weight on the end, and 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.800 then you toss it out now you know, you deploy 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.960 it out the window exactly fuselage on the back and 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.920 then it's got to the bridge. Yeah. Yeah, and so 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.640 you after you take off, you deploy it, and then 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.640 before you land you better remember to reel it back in. 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.560 Why what would be the reason that one would disconnect that. 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.160 It seems like it's a innocuous thing. Yeah, apparently U 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.000 I guess they felt it was just too much of 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:10.880 a nuisance to have to reel it in every time 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.800 you land the plane. So why not just not not 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.880 deploy it? Yeah that question. Yeah, it doesn't seem like 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.200 it's a tremendously heavy thing. Yeah, it's not like weighing 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.800 them down a hole. Probably got it's probably a couple 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.040 of pounds total in weight, So yeah, just don't eat 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.080 a couple of meals maybe and you're well, it's probably 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.000 more than a couple of pounds for the electric winch 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.400 and everything else. But you know, still it wasn't that much. 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.840 And uh, it's a little explicable. You know for me, 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.000 I would want to have everything. Yeah, I just want 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.800 to have that extra radio, you know, just in case 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:44.720 when you where the radios goes out. And you know, 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:46.480 part of the big part of the problem with this 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.400 whole thing, for Amelia and Fred is that the radio 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.160 wasn't quite working right and that kind of hosed them 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:56.240 in the end. Yeah, and uh, just a brief mention here. 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.560 They were talking before they hired brought Fred onto the project. 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.720 They were talking to another navigator whose name was Bradford Washburn, 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.600 and they asked him. That was Amelia and her husband 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.480 were asking him, well, we we want to go from 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.680 New Guinea to Howland Island. It's going to be really 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:15.520 tough to find. What what do you think we need 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:17.760 to do? And he said, you have to have a 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:22.240 trailing antenna and and then for communications, and you have 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.360 to have a radio operator on the island. Amelia didn't 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.360 want to go with the trailing antenna and so he 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.560 backed out. Smart dude. Yeah for him, I'm sure he 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.600 was patting himself on the back. I mean, he probably 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.520 wasn't happy about it, but you know, still the so 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:42.160 the jump from le from La Papua, New Guinea, it's 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.640 a town on the east east coast of Papua New Guinea. 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:46.560 As I said, the third to last leg, it was 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.959 expected to take at least eighteen twenty hours and the 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.520 Elector was capable of flying twenty four hours under a 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.760 deal conditions if the tanks were full, and I've heard 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:57.839 varying accounts of this. Most say that the tanks were 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.760 full when they left Lay, but I've also seen a 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:03.680 few other accounts that stay that, No, she only had 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.640 about nine fifty gallons of gas. Well, how much was 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:11.960 the tank? Sorry, thank I've heard varying spent that. Yeah, eleven, 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.240 we're there, Yeah, yeah, But apparently they there was a 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.000 grass airstrip at Lai and it was it was only 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.840 three thousand feet long, and apparently, according to some authorities 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:27.719 that have heard, she couldn't take off with much more 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.240 weight than she had, and they actually offloaded a bunch 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.559 of weight just so they could make up make it 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.120 up with fuel, so they took some stuff off at Law. 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.360 The Navy was cooperating with the mission. The Coast Guard 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:42.439 cutter Itasca was stationed at Hellan Island, and also the 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:47.520 tug the USS Ontario was stationed midway between Lay and Howland, 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:52.480 and then the USS Swan was stationed beyond Hollan Island 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.560 to the east. So the Navy was plane of ships 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.800 form to be able to communicate with as they got close. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.000 When they got there and if they were shot, somebody 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.320 still talk to them, yeah, or go rescue them if 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.320 they had a ditch or something like that. Of the navy. 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.920 That was awfully nice. Yeah. Yeah, it was an overnight flight. 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.400 It was scheduled to arrive at helln Island early in 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.160 the morning of July two. So they left July second, 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:21.640 they arrived July second. That's international dateline. Oh yeah, right, okay, yeah, 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.160 And so they left at ten am, which is zero 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.920 Granwich mean time, and so all the times I'm going 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.160 to be giving from here on in our Granwich mean 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.160 time because when I don't know if you guys noticed, 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.600 as when you researched, it was, oh, it's screw. It's 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.439 really hard because there's half hour time zones over there 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.320 and they're they're talking local time at La local time 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.439 at Howland and and then they're mixing it in with 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.240 Granwich mean time and oh my god, it's confused. So 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.200 actually this is interesting. My brother is I'm currently in 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:54.600 New Zealand working and so they are three hours behind us, 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.640 but they in tomorrow. Yeah, so it's very interesting trying 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.920 to have, you know, skype conversation with him because it's 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.640 like I don't I literally cannot conceptualize of what time 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.319 it is there for you because it's just it seems 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.440 like it's in the future. So I you know it 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:11.280 is in the future. Well, I kind of had this 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.160 same thing happening with this, you know, because it was 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.599 kind of like, I don't know, I can't get a 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.319 good beat on it. So good on the Greenwich meantime 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:21.000 that we're just going to do it all in one 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.920 keep simple, let's do it. Yeah, Okay, back to Holland Island. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.760 So the morning that Amelia and Fred were do in 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.240 at Holland Island, the Ataska reported weather conditions as clear 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.679 blue sky to the south and the east, but heavy 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:36.600 cloud banks to the north and the west. And the 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:38.560 Ataska is the one that was at the island. That 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.920 was at the island, yeah, and so yeah, so yeah, 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.160 so not the ideal weather conditions for finding a tiny 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.680 island in the middle of nowhere. And so the plane 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.360 was flying towards the cloud banks, that's flying through them. Yeah, 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.480 they were to the west of Hallan Island. There were 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.120 a very decent number of radio messages, but I'm not 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.000 going to list them all between there were a lot, 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.600 but that when they were getting close to Holland at 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.720 seventy seven g m t Amelia radio were two hundred 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.920 miles out. Please take a bearing on her signal, And 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.240 she started whistling into the microphone and that so that 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.239 it would be a tone for him to to track, right, Yeah, 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.840 just just a steady noise for the track. And the 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.360 thing about it is is they replied to her, but 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.840 they never got an acknowledgement of the message. And then 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.120 in fact, they never got acknowledgments of any of their 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.439 messages to her over the radio. Shouldn't indicates to me 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.719 her receiver was not working. That's it's widely believed that 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.960 there was receiver antend had gotten damaged on takeoff. So 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.559 about this time the Ataska fired up its oil burners 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.640 and generated a big column of black smoke. Oh that's 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.720 a good idea. Yeah, yeah, the commander of the ship 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.480 said later that should have been visible for forty plus 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.920 miles to the south and east. Uh. And if if 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.480 Amelia was flying at one thousand feet, which she said 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:58.920 she was, well, but I've also heard that if she 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.760 was coming from slightly you know, I think it was 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.959 a slightly different direction, it could have very easily blended 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.520 in with the clouds depending on where she was. You know, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.520 it's funny. I looked up this this ship and I 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.240 was like, it's got guns. Why the hell weren't they 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.880 just fired off shots to make a bunch of noises. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.079 She can home in on that that's not a bad idea. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.040 Didn't have guns at that time, Oh it didn't. Didn't 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.520 got fitted for guns for or two is when I 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.320 figured out they will, like what happens when it's the 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.120 errant shot and you shoot the plane rain? You shoot blank? 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:36.000 You don't? Yeah, I'm not sure miles away and with 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.520 two really loud aircraft engines, you know, right next to 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.960 your true Yeah. So I actually have one quick question 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.840 before we move on from this. It was documented that 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.640 Amelia did have like the kind of training right that 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.760 she would know you have to respond when people radio you, right, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:55.720 And there was documented that she had done that in 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.960 the past. Rights. I just wanted to make sure. I mean, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.000 you know, there's so much talk about her maybe not 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.600 being a great pilot and blah blah blah. I mean, 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.120 I would think that everybody would know if somebody radio's you, 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.480 you at least acknowledge that you got it. But it 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.880 occurs to me that maybe she just didn't know that, 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.080 but I was, so I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, well, 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:20.080 she was accused of not following correct procedures radio procedures 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.760 later on, but I just wanted to make sure, so 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:24.760 if we're going forward with this that it's that it 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.600 does seem reasonable that she wasn't actually receiving the calls, 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.480 not that she was just choosing to not respond. Yeah. Yeah. 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.040 The other thing that I know of is in reading, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.960 is because this radio system was different than what she 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.800 was used to and she want to count it. I 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:40.640 read it was like she got like a half hour 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.520 of training on it. At it's lucky. Is that who 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.200 made us? Yeah? They when she was picking up, they 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.880 gave her a half hour walk through how the radio worked. 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.920 Wasn't right. She may not have been known how to 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.440 identify that or correct for it. Yeah, it was like 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.360 her radio direction finder, I think, is the one that 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:01.480 she got just a really quick overview on and that 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.800 was it. Yeah. Well, so when I guess it's also 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.280 possible she wasn't totally clear on how it worked and 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:08.160 she made a thought she was hitting the button the 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.480 right way, or was holding her head the right way, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.080 and she wasn't, and nobody's saying to her like, hey, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.040 did you hear what we were saying? Her headphones were 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.000 unplugged the whole time, and she had no idea the 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:24.200 mixer was off. Yeah, yeah, Okay, so all right, sorry, 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.960 let's back to back to what the commander said. He 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.840 said that he was it was doubtful that the smoke 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:31.760 would have been visible for more than twenty miles to 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.120 the north and west, which is where she was coming from. Okay, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.960 back to the messages. GMT. She radio said they were 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.600 a hundred miles out and low on gas. Uh and 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:44.880 along about this time, her voice was starting to get 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:46.200 a little, a little bit of an edge in it, 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:51.400 I hear, I can imagine. Yeah, yeah, but this is 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.600 this is the part that I find a little inexplicable, 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.360 is why it was. You know, she must not have 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.680 been getting any messages from the Ataska or anybody else. 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.480 So at that point, don't you conclude that your receiver 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.040 was busted and turn around and go back to light. 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.080 Isn't that what not? If you're running low on she's 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.560 been how far out of well no, no, no, I'm 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.600 not saying this way. She must have known earlier in 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.960 the flight, well, you know, well before the halfway point 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.399 and her receiver wasn't working. How could you not deduce 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.920 the receiver? Do we know? Was there a storm, any 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.399 kind of interference that could have knocked him out on midflight, 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.359 So they wouldn't have known that they weren't receiving. So 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.560 sadly they didn't find out that they weren't receiving until 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.480 not possible, until they suddenly weren't receiving from the ship 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.240 and they were like, well, we are too far now 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:38.320 to turn around, so we're just going to have to 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.040 go pointing in return. Yeah. Yeah, it could have been. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:42.680 It could have been maybe they got struck by lightning 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:44.520 or something like that, or even I mean, I don't know, 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.920 like maybe a duck hit it or something, you know, yeah, 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.679 something like that, you know, But I mean that is 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:55.439 that is that a reasonable thing to sit with. The 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.080 prevailing theory is that it was damaged on takeoff and 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.320 it wouldn't have been working the entire flight, so they 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.040 should have figured something out, like when they were communicating 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.800 with the tower and not hearing the tower in Papua 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:10.840 New Guinea responding to them again. Yeah, I mean so yeah, 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.240 but anyway, for whatever reason, they just they turned on. 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.119 I think that maybe they figured that they could they 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:19.120 be able to find this place, you know, and certainly 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.680 if the weather had been better, you know, weather didn't 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.360 help at all. They had a head wind for one thing. 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.600 Uh So back to the messages here, they got their 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:32.359 last message message on the Ataska am T. She said 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.480 that they were on on a line I think it 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.119 was line of position slash three thirty seven. Can you 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.000 explain what that means? I'm still not positive that I understand. Yeah, 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.800 I definitely don't understand. What is what are those numbers? 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.320 So lattitude and longitude? No, no, no, that's uh you 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.399 know you know that you know that's in a in 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.320 a circulars three D and sixty degrees right, so yeah, 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.200 all right, exactly, And so zero on that circle is 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.600 is north? How do an eighty greeze is south? So 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:06.400 one degrees is like south southeast? Okay, okay, So I've 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.639 never done bearings like That's why I was. I was 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:15.160 a little confused. So there, so they're south southeast what yeah? 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.560 So south is south southeast? Is between south and southeast 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.000 right now, I know, But it's and then they can't 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:25.760 give their position. Three seven is just the opposite like 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.480 north northwest. Oh, so she was either going south southe 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.159 so that's the thing. She didn't say what direction on 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.199 that line that they were going. Oh they were all, 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.080 oh I see, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, And so it's 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.680 it's so it's believed that what what fred Knud had 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.359 done was what he was going to do is get 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.119 them out there, take a bearing off off the sun, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:48.919 or however we could get a bearing presumable with the 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:53.720 sun and determine their longitude. So if if they're at 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.919 the correct longitude for the island, for Allen Island, then 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.080 they make they make a right turn and head down 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.840 that line to hit the island. But you know, so 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:07.320 that's that's theoretically what he was doing. I see, okay, yeah, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:09.880 so I assumed that they were running south on that line, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.760 but we actually don't know. She didn't say. And actually, 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.840 and they may frankly, they may not have really known either, right, No, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:17.720 they would have known, but they wouldn't know which direction 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.280 they were going. But but you know, we just had 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:21.800 no way of knowing if they were going north on 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:23.920 that line. Of course, they would have known. I'm sorry, 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.760 I don't know, I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.280 I'm being a dummy. Okay. So, and that was the 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:34.879 correct longitude for the island latitude longitude. It appears not 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.679 because they never showed up. So she also said at 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:40.480 the end of that message said she was switched switching 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:45.200 to sixty different frequency. The Taska radio back telling her 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.439 not to change her frequency, but apparently she did anyway, 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:50.160 because that's the last they ever heard of her. Did 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.159