NavList:

Chris Maness
You asked us what we thought about the reason for Noonan and Earharts disappearance.

I have no idea what happened to the Noonan/Earhart Flight and no favourite celestial-based theory, but one possibility that's persistently overlooked is that they got reasonably close but simply didn't see Howland Is.  Whilst nobody can deny that Chichester's navigation was both exemplary as well as lucky, in the final approach flying quite low towards both Lord Howe and Norfolk Is he was able to spot their vertical extent of 2871ft in the case of Lord Howe Is and 1047ft in the case of Norfolk Is.  The vertical extent of Howland Is a mere 10-20 ft.  Likewise, the surface area of Lord Howe Is. is 14.55squ km, Norfolk Is. is 34.6squ km, and Howland Is. Is 2.6squ km.  Moreover, Earhart was flying into the Sun which was at about 15 degrees above the horizon.  It’s true that Itasca was making smoke, which was seen to extend several miles, but if the smoke remained recognisable for that long, perhaps there was also an inversion present which kept the smoke together low in the sky.  

The couple’s mistake, if there was one, didn’t occur between Lae and Howland Is; it occurred months earlier when Earhart chose to route via such a tiny, difficult to see island.  It’s interesting to speculate that if Earhart had not crashed on take-off from Honolulu during the ‘westabout’ flight, might we not still be arguing about the couple’s disappearance, except the disappearance date would have been Mar 21^st 1937.  DaveP