World of Mysteries - In Search of Amelia Earhart

Papua New Guinea, a remote island in the vast Pacific. So impenetrable is this jungle island that only the most adventurous travel here. This untamed land holds many secrets. It plays host to the greatest aviation mystery of all time. In 1937, Amelia Earhart took off from Papua New Guinea, then vanished without a trace. Now, her true fate is finally emerging. Armed with new technology, experts are going back to the Pacific to find the queen of the skies. International travel has never been easier. Thousands of aircraft girdle the globe guided to their destinations by satellite navigation systems. Pick any place on earth and it's only a plane ride away. It would never occur to us that our pilot might get lost. But in the pioneering days of aviation, when Amelia Earhart was flying, getting lost was an occupational hazard. When she opened up the air routes we fly today, she did so with little more than a compass to guide her. In 1932, flying across the states was big news, especially when the pilot was a woman. Amelia Earhart's daring and charm made her a media celebrity. People hungered for every detail of this remarkable woman's life. What did you carry on the trip? You mean to eat? Yeah, to eat and drink. Well, I carried some water, of course, because my cockpit is very warm. And I carried a sandwich in case I didn't eat it though. I carried some hot chocolate and the old reliable tomato juice. What kind of a sandwich was it? Chicken sandwich. When she became the first woman to fly the Atlantic, New York City gave her a hero's welcome. In an age when most people had never seen an airplane, flying across an ocean was like going to the moon. In 1937, Amelia announced her most ambitious project, to fly around the world. Contemplated course covers about 27,000 miles. It will be the first flight, if successful, which approximates the equator. The first two-thirds of the flight were successful. A month after she left the U.S., Amelia reached the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea, California was only three days away, but she never made it. Her final takeoff on July the 2nd, 1937, was captured on film. This was the last ever confirmed sighting of Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan. They took off, then simply vanished. Their destination was Howland Island, 2,500 miles to the east, a tiny speck of land in the vast Pacific Ocean. A ship called the Itasca was positioned at Howland Island to help guide Amelia in by radio. But the ship lost contact with her, 20 hours into the flight. With an estimated two hours of fuel still remaining, Amelia's radio went dead. The Itasca began to search the waters around Howland Island, thinking Amelia might have crashed into the ocean. But it found no trace. The only other landfall, apart from Howland, lay 300 miles to the south. The hope was that Amelia had become lost and headed for the Phoenix Islands with her remaining fuel. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered the biggest air and sea search operation in U.S. history. The Phoenix chain consisted of eight largely uninhabited islands. The Navy searched for two weeks, but found no trace of the flyers. Finally, the search was abandoned. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were declared missing, presumed dead. The greatest woman pilot of all time had disappeared, and history's greatest aviation mystery had begun. For over 60 years, Amelia's fate has been shrouded in myth. According to one myth, Amelia had been spying for Roosevelt over Japanese islands in the Pacific. Some claimed she had been taken captive by the Japanese and later beheaded. But the most enduring theories center on the Phoenix Islands. The claim is that Amelia did make it there, but was somehow missed by the Navy search. In one version, she lived with a fisherman on an island paradise. But investigation has shown this to be pure fiction. In another version, she was a lone castaway on one of the islands. But no castaway could have survived here for long. The islands are beautiful, but deadly. Over the last decade, six expeditions have been mounted to the islands to search for signs of Amelia. The most compelling evidence that she was here are remnants of a woman's leather shoe from the 1930s of a type sometimes worn by the aviatrix. But the evidence doesn't fit. The shoe was two sizes too big and probably belonged to a later settler. A skeleton was also found near the water, but analysis of the bones proved inconclusive. Amelia's body was never found. There is no evidence that Amelia made it to the Phoenix Islands. With apparently two hours of fuel remaining, she disappeared off the face of the earth. Nobody has yet come up with an answer to the mystery, until now. A team of professionals has been sifting fact from fiction. Armed with fresh clues and new technology, they claim to have finally solved the Earhart mystery. We have a high degree of confidence that we know the area where the aircraft is located. We're extremely confident that we can find this plane. We're going to bring Amelia back to life. She's going to be a new hero that America is going to rediscover. Amelia Earhart came of age as the golden age of aviation was getting into swing. In 1920, Amelia went to an air show in Long Beach, California, where stunt pilots showed off their skill and daring in front of stunned audiences. She fell head over heels in love with the spectacle. Amelia was desperate to try it herself. She wrote in her diary, Finally, one day came the chance to ride. By the time I got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly. Flying was seen as unfit for ladies, but Amelia was no ordinary young woman. She took a job as a truck driver to finance her pilot certificate. Flying had become her passion. Amelia took to flying because she wanted adventure. She had a terrible dread of living what one would call a nine to five life. Her life changed forever in 1928 when she met wealthy publicist George Putnam. He was looking for a woman to be the first to fly the Atlantic. But it was really a gimmick. Amelia would only be going as a passenger. In an age when flying was a man's world, Amelia was big news. Overnight, a celebrity was born. This is the plane in which Amelia Earhart first entered the record books as a pilot in her own right. In 1928, she became the first woman to fly solo across the U.S. and back. Now, an admirer retraces her steps. Antique aviation buff Dr. Carlene Mendieta is recreating the original coast-to-coast flight. She's taken time out to pilot this classic biplane on its epic journey. Mendieta hopes to gain insight into Amelia's skill as a pilot and navigator. Some modern pilots have questioned that skill and suggested it may have been a factor in her 1937 disappearance. But no one questions Amelia's role as a true pioneer. She was definitely ahead of her time. Many of her own family members wouldn't speak to her. They basically disowned her because they felt that the things that she was doing were unfeminine and totally unladylike and not acceptable. So she really fought the odds to be able to do the things that she did. Amelia bought the plane from English aviatrix Mary Heath. Only nine were ever made, and this is the sole survivor. An Avro Avian from 1927, restored by historicaviation.com. The body of the plane is wood and canvas. Its top speed is only 85 miles an hour. Amelia took off from Rye, New York on August 31st, 1928. Recreating the flight was to prove an education for Mendieta. Flying this old machine is tough work, even for an experienced pilot. It is a tiring airplane to fly because it's what we call inherently unstable. It's the technology of the 20s. It has a lot of adverse yaw, meaning the nose wants to swing around. You're having to constantly mind the rudder. And in turbulence, the plane wants to go everywhere. So it's a job to actually fly the airplane. Following Amelia's route, Mendieta flies south over the Hudson River to Pittsburgh. From there, it's Illinois, Texas, Arizona and Los Angeles, then back again over the Midwest via Chicago to Rye, New York. Mendieta navigates with only a roadmap and compass, just as Amelia did in 1928. When Amelia made this flight, she experienced engine trouble and even had to crash land a couple of times. A regular occurrence during aviation's golden age. It took three weeks of near constant flying for Mendieta to complete the marathon journey. She's left with no doubts about Amelia's courage and skill. I know there's kind of a common theme that Amelia Earhart wasn't much of a pilot and less of a navigator. But I would dare anyone who says or thinks that to get in this airplane with just a compass and a roadmap from 1928 and make the trip that we just made. So I think she was a heck of a pilot and an even probably better navigator. Amelia completed her historic flight on October 29th, 1928. She was becoming a household name thanks to the publicity machine of her now husband, George Putnam. Increasingly, he was behind her every move. In 1932, they decided that she would go for glory. She would try to fly the Atlantic solo in a new Lockheed Vega airplane. 25 people had died since Charles Lindbergh's crossing five years earlier. With only a compass to guide her, she simply pointed the Vega towards England and took off. Her mechanic gave her a one in a hundred chance. Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland on May 20th, 1932 to fly to England. But a series of storms along the way pushed her north. Instead of hitting London, England, she touched down 400 miles away in Londonderry, Ireland. That she made it at all was a testament to her skill and courage. The flight confirmed her as the queen of the skies. When Amelia made that first trip alone over the Atlantic, I can remember my mother beaming at me and saying, isn't that grand? And I suddenly thought there were a whole lot of American women that would have loved to have done, to have an adventure of some sort. Amelia Earhart was now the most famous woman aviator of all time. Over the next five years, she rewrote the record book, flying faster, higher and further than any other woman and most men. By 1937, there were few records left to break. So she decided to go for the biggest flight of all. She bought a new plane, the most advanced of its kind in the world, a Lockheed Electra. The Electra was a twin-engined commercial airliner, the first all-metal plane ever built. Amelia planned to fly around the world at its greatest circumference, the equator. On March 17th, 1937, she headed west from California to Hawaii, on the first leg of her global odyssey. But the next day, she crashed on takeoff from Honolulu. Amelia blamed mechanical failure. Others blamed pilot error. She returned by sea from Hawaii, vowing to repair the Electra and start again. But things went from bad to worse. Her radio operator, Harry Manning, left the team. He later confessed he had lost confidence in Amelia's skill as a pilot. Instead, she would fly with Fred Noonan. He was an expert navigator with Pan American, but he was no expert with a radio. And he had a reputation as a drinker. Fred Noonan left Pan American under a cloud, which had to do with drinking. He was an expert navigator, but nevertheless, they did fire him. The entire project was mortgaged to the Hilt. In order to keep it alive, Amelia was pushed into a punishing fundraising schedule. She was pushed beyond a limit in the last year. Her photographs show shadows under the eyes, a face drawn. Preparations for the flight suffered. Amelia was unfamiliar with the Electra's radio equipment. But her training session turned into yet another photo shoot. The Electra was fitted with modern direction-finding equipment. But she was not comfortable with this technology, and it's doubtful if it was ever fully functional. To make matters worse, neither Amelia nor Fred Noonan could use Morse code. To save weight, she ditched her Morse key and perhaps even her life raft. Navigation would rest with Noonan. The world flight finally restarted on June 1st, 1937. On the first attempt, they had flown west from California. But by now, the trade winds had reversed. So this time, they went east. From Miami, they made their way down through Central and South America. At Natal in Brazil, they headed out across the Atlantic, reaching Africa at Dakar. They flew over the deserts of Central Africa, landing at Assab by the Red Sea. From there, it was on to Karachi. And then down into Southeast Asia at Singapore. After a short hop to Darwin in northern Australia, it was across the sea to the town of Lehi on the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea. The flight across the island was a treacherous one. Amelia had to haul the Electra over the mountains, dodging peaks which lay hidden in the clouds. She recorded the trip in her daily telex to George Putnam. It was a fairy story sky country, peopled with grotesque cloud creatures who eyed us with ancient wisdom as we threaded our way through its shining white valleys. But the mountains of clouds were only dank gray mist when we barged into them. That was healthier than playing hide-and-seek with the unknown mountains of terra firma below. Finally, when dead reckoning indicated we had traveled far enough, we let down gingerly. The thinning cloud obligingly withdrew. We found Lehi sat down. By the time Amelia reached Lehi, the trip was taking its toll on her health. She was exhausted. She was, I think, a physical and emotional wreck by the time she arrived in New Guinea. To make matters worse, she and Noonan argued that evening. Noonan went off to a bar. Amelia telexed Putnam that she was experiencing personnel problems, meaning that Noonan had started drinking again. Eyewitnesses said that he ordered several large whiskeys and was obviously drunk. It has been suggested that Noonan's drinking may have been a factor in the impending catastrophe, though it's impossible to prove. The next day's departure was canceled due to weather and minor technical problems. For the first time since leaving Miami, Amelia had a chance to do some sightseeing from ground level. She telexed Putnam. I turned into a beautiful coconut grove before a village entrance. The village was built more or less around a central open plaza. All huts were on stilts and underneath the dogs and pigs hold forth. In the village were several native women, almost the first I had seen as women here are very much out of evidence. I wish we could stay here peacefully for a time and see something of this strange land. Papua New Guinea is a land of contrasts. Even the opening of a minor road is cause for celebration. Yet this tribal land is one of the world's oldest aviation centers. The island's gold mines relied on aircraft to move men and equipment around the highlands. For Amelia Earhart, Ley's main attraction was its thriving aviation industry and the expertise of its pilots. Richard Ley is one of the top pilots in Papua New Guinea, or PNG as it's known to the locals. He's flying in mountains that Amelia crossed in 1937. Amelia Earhart would have needed to have been a good pilot to fly across PNG, especially seeing that she hadn't done it before. The weather changes very rapidly in the tropics and it can be quite awesome if you're not used to it. It was this local knowledge that Amelia sought from pilots in 1937. These jungle-covered mountains are so impenetrable that the only way to really get around is by air. We're going to a place at the Finisterre Mountains and there's a lot of people live up there. There are a few roads going in a little way but, you know, mostly they've got to fly or walk and a lot of them still walk. It's a 20-minute flight but a two-week walk from Ley to Kasanumbi Village. The only drawback with the flying is the landing. You have one go at landing and that's all there is to it. If you don't get your approach right, you're going to have to go ahead with it anyway and if you really don't get it right, you're going to lose the aeroplane. So we get used to flying into places where we've got one shot, one shot only at landing. Over this airfield now, we've just left 5,000 feet. The airfield is around 4,000 feet. I'm going to fly over the top and make sure that there's nothing on it in the way of dogs and pigs or anything like that. And I'm going to do a left-hand circuit and at about midway across, there's a big ravine there, about midway across that we will be committed to land. This place is a bit rough so we'll jump around a bit but don't worry. In Kasanumbi, the weekly landing is a big event. Richard ferries people and products between mountain villages and coastal towns. Without aviation, the economy and society of Papua New Guinea would be thrown back to the Stone Age. These villagers may never have seen a car but they travel by plane without batting an eyelid. Even though this runway ends abruptly at a thousand foot drop. Richard takes risks that pilots elsewhere wouldn't dream of. But even he is daunted by the flight to Howland Island that Amelia Earhart attempted in 1937. If somebody had asked me even now to fly to Howland Island from here with the equipment that she had, including the navigator, I would be very, very reticent. I wouldn't be happy about that at all. With GPS navigation, it's a different matter. It's much easier today. You set one of these GPSs up. I could set that up here and I could find a tennis court in the middle of Spain without ordering course or anything. It'd take me there and it'd place me within 30 metres of that tennis court. That's how good I am. Without such technology, finding Howland Island would be Amelia's ultimate test. On the eve of the flight, she reflected upon the task ahead. Not much more than a month ago, I was on the other shore of the Pacific looking westward. This evening, I look eastward over the whole Pacific. In those fast moving days which have intervened, the whole width of the world has passed behind us, except this broad ocean. I shall be glad when we have the hazards of its navigation behind us. 48 hours later, she had vanished. For over 60 years, the myth has endured that Amelia somehow made it to the Phoenix Islands, 300 miles south of Howland. But now, this myth can finally be exposed. At Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Elgin and Marie Long have never believed that Amelia Earhart had enough fuel to reach the Phoenix Islands. Elgin is a retired Navy pilot. In his younger days, he flew regularly to Howland Island. He and Marie have amassed a huge archive about Amelia's final flight. They know she left Ley with 1,100 gallons of fuel. This should have given her plenty of time to find Howland Island. Nothing in their research could explain why Amelia ran out of fuel two hours before she should have done. Then, they struck gold in the shape of a document called the Chater Report. The proof was finally found up in Vancouver, British Columbia, of all places. It was an eight-page, single-space, typewritten report which gave us all the evidence, all the proof we needed to solve the Earhart mystery once and for all. Eric Chater was manager of Guinea Airways. Stationed at Ley, he was the only person in radio contact with Amelia during the first half of the flight to Howland. The evidence that was in the Chater Report was a smoking gun. That gave us the airspeed and the ground speeds that Earhart was flying, the winds that she had aloft, what altitude she was flying at, and what airspeed. This tells us her fuel consumption. That's why, even though we all suspected that she should have had another two hours of fuel remaining, she ran out of fuel at 20 hours and 13 minutes because of the flight that she had to make. Thanks to the Chater Report, we can now reconstruct with some certainty the entire 2,500-mile flight across the Pacific. At precisely 10 a.m. on July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan climbed into the Electra and taxied to the end of this runway. Amelia's fuel tanks were full to the brim. She had to take that airplane off, and she was so heavy, once she passed the halfway point, there'd be no way she could ever stop it. She wasn't sure she was going to get airborne to the very end of the runway. When she pulled back on that stick, that airplane either had to fly or they were going to die. Onlookers' hearts were in their mouths as they watched the Electra belly flop towards the ocean. Only the ground effect, a cushion of air beneath the plane, kept it from ditching. After a long struggle, Amelia got the Electra's nose up and was airborne. They were on their way. Amelia could have been forgiven for thinking that the worst was over. 45 minutes later, she flew over the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea and out over the Pacific Ocean. She would never set foot on land again. Amelia's first message to Eric Chater came after four hours and 18 minutes. Speed 140 knots. Lay. Everything okay. She was on course and flying at the correct altitude and speed for maximum fuel economy. But in the South Pacific, the weather can change in an instant. Five hours into the flight, a storm blew up. To avoid it, Amelia was forced to climb over the mountains of Bougainville Island. 7.3 south. Passing through cumulus clouds. Was everything okay? This was the last time she would sign off with her cheery trademark, everything okay. Amelia had to haul the Electra way above its optimum cruising altitude. The climb used a massive amount of fuel. Then came another blow. After seven hours, she reported that she was fighting a 25 mile per hour headwind. She had calculated her fuel consumption on the forecast 12 mile per hour headwinds. She had no choice but to gun the engines to compensate. At this increased speed, she was using almost 10% more fuel per hour. The situation was potentially disastrous. After 10 hours, they spotted a ship. They assumed it was the Ontario positioned at the halfway point as a marker. But it was probably the USS Myrtle Bank, 40 miles further north. If uncorrected, this small error would become a huge problem over the course of a thousand miles. Now the role of the Itasca anchored at Howland Island became critical. The plan was that the Itasca's radio operator would take a bearing on Amelia's voice and guide her in. Leo Bellarts received her first weak message 16 hours into the flight. Bellarts transmitted the first of many messages. But it became clear that whilst he could hear Amelia, she couldn't hear him. Either she was operating her radio incorrectly or it was malfunctioning. Itasca to KHAQQ, do you read? Over. Bellarts tried using Morse code, but it floated off into the ether. Amelia had left her Morse code equipment behind to save weight. At sunrise on July 2nd, she was only 100 miles from Howland Island. But still, she had not heard from Bellarts. She sent an anxious message, hoping he could hear her and use her signal to fix her exact position. Please take bearing on us and report in half an hour. She whistled into the mic, but Bellarts could not get a fix. The radio direction finder had also malfunctioned. By now, Amelia was exhausted. She'd been flying for almost 18 hours. Now, only Fred Noonan could get them to Howland. But the weather was still against them. On a clear day, they could have flown high and seen Howland from 50 miles away or more. But cloud north of the island forced them low to 1,000 feet. KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be not see you. At 1,000 feet, their visibility plunged to under 20 miles. Even so, with enough fuel, they would almost certainly have found Howland. But the storm at Bougainville and the constant headwind had drained their gas tanks. Time was running out. 20 hours and 13 minutes after leaving Ley, Amelia sent a last, desperate message. We are on the line of position 157337. We'll repeat this message on 6210 kilocycles. We are running north and south. Amelia had no time to repeat the message. As she reached over to crank the transmitter, the engine coughed. Itasca to KHAQQ, do you read? Over. Unless the Electra is found, we can only speculate as to whether they drowned or died on impact. But we do now know that they are at the bottom of the Pacific, somewhere in the vicinity of Howland. There's no other land, shoal, sandbar, nothing, no rock, unknown island or anything within 325 miles of Howland Island. Well, if she's running out of fuel and she was in the middle of a transmission that she never completed, she must have landed in the water because there's nothing but water around there. The question still remains, where precisely in the ocean did the Electra go down? Elgin Long recorded an interview with Leo Bellarts before he died. Bellarts' information unraveled the mystery a little further. When Chief Bellarts heard her on the radio, she was so loud, and he went over to the door and looked out, expecting to see the airplane up above him. When he didn't see her, he actually said he closed his eyes and remember cocking his ear, he thought he'd hear her. That's how close he thought she was, just from the strength of a radio signal. Those radio signals are the key to pinpointing where Amelia went down. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home to ham radio enthusiast Tom Vinson. He's in his basement, surfing the airwaves like he's been doing since he was a boy. I became interested in amateur radio when I was just in junior high school, and I would sit up at night and I would tune in like Radio Netherlands or Radio Moscow, and it would glow from the tubes. I could hear these signals from all over the world, and I thought, wow, that's just amazing. Vinson is bringing his skills as a radio enthusiast to the search for Amelia Earhart. Using a radio like this is really a little more complicated than just picking up a phone or getting on the internet. That's part of the problem that Amelia Earhart had because she really didn't use the radio all that much. It was new technology back then, and airborne radio was very new. Tom calls up a team of radio hams who have been studying Amelia's transmissions. NY0V around today, Rod? Yeah, NY0V. Rod Bloxam is the team's systems engineer and the brains behind the operation. There's nothing he doesn't know about radio. Roger Hatcher is the transmissions expert. No one knows more than he does about the Electra's radio capacity. Charlie Snodgrass is the team's navigator. He used to guide C-130s into Antarctica using the same method as Fred Noonan. Tom Vinson put the team together. He believes they are close to pinning down the Electra's precise location. I think we have the best chance of anyone that's ever looked for her to find her. They may be amateurs in their spare time, but these guys are professionals at the top of their field. They all work at Rockwell Collins, one of America's top communications corporations. When the Earhart case first hit his desk, Vinson could never have foreseen the enormity of the task ahead. This project became way out of hand. Here we are three years later, thousands of hours of analysis and research, and everyone's totally addicted. This is one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century, and to be part of it, to become involved in it was really exciting. The team's biggest clue was the Atascas radiolog. Leo Bellarts had assigned signal strengths to each of Amelia's transmissions, grading them from one to five. The further the Electra was from the Atasca, the weaker its signal. As the Electra got closer, the signal strengths increased. The team would discover how far Amelia was from Howland if they could convert her final signal into nautical miles. They ran an experiment. Rod Bloxam built receivers and transmitters to replicate those of the Electra and the Atasca. We need a hard number for S5. Once we know how strong the signal was, we can analyze how far away the airplane was that produced that signal. We had to first simulate Earhart's voice we have from the Atasca logs, the things she said. They played Amelia's simulated voice through a receiver, and by adding static, produced a range of different signal strengths. And we use this as a library to quantify just exactly what S5, S4, and S3, so forth, means in the Atasca log. The team also needed to know how the metal structure of the Electra affected the transmission of Amelia's voice. Roger Hatcher spent painstaking weeks creating a precise computer model of the Electra. Minute adjustments were then made to the library of signals. Finally, the signals were played to the team. They assigned signal strengths to each transmission. Mainframe computers at Rockwell Collins have been working overtime to process the information. The computers crunched the numbers and came up with a figure for S5. The team believes it now knows exactly how far Amelia was from Howland Island when she made her final transmission. They have been able to retrace her route as she approached Howland. Their findings show that Noonan was flying a ladder search pattern in those last, desperate minutes. Tragically, if they hadn't run out of fuel, the last leg of their search would have taken them straight over Howland. To find Amelia Earhart's aircraft would just be the greatest feeling of elation, because we would then be a part of solving the greatest mystery of the 20th century. Where is Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan? Where is that aircraft located? This man believes he'll be the first to know. He's a deep-sea treasure hunter working with the radio team and Elgin Long. He specializes in underwater recovery missions. Nauticos have an impeccable deep-sea salvage record. The key to their success is a unique computer program called ReNav. ReNav allows Nauticos to retrace the last movements of any ship or plane lost at sea. Our real edge in finding things underwater begins with ReNavigation. You can have the best operations team and the best equipment, but if you're not looking in the right place, you won't find it. To find where Amelia went down, the ReNav program will recreate her entire journey. In the problem of reconstructing Amelia Earhart's disappearance, there's a parallel in driving. Let's say you're driving to work, a route you're familiar with, you know the distance, you know how long it usually takes, but on any day you may be stopped by a light, a train crossing, or something that you can't predict ahead of time, and this will cause your time to vary and to have some uncertainty. This is a problem with the Amelia Earhart flight. We don't have complete knowledge of everything she did. ReNav takes all available data about headwinds, fuel consumption, and radio signals, and re-plots Amelia's route. A high probability search area is the end result. Head of operations at Nauticos is Tom Detweiler. He'll operate the underwater machines that will search for the Electra 17,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific. Trying to position an underwater vehicle over something on the bottom with 17,000 feet between you and the vehicle is like standing on top of a tall building like the Empire State Building with a long wet noodle and putting a piece of bubble gum on the end and trying to pick up a penny that's down on the sidewalk. Preparations for the search are sometimes unorthodox. Detweiler took to the skies to visualize the deep. I wanted to skydive to experience what it was like to be working 17,000 feet away from something. It's very hard to visualize with all that water in between. So this gave me the opportunity to clearly see without the water being in the way what it was like to be at that height. They're homing in on the Electra. The ReNav program is defining a search area to be scoured by underwater machines. Dave Jordan is convinced the Electra will be there. But the search area's exact location is top secret. The question everyone wants the answer to is where is she? And that is, of course, very important and secret to us. That's what we're keeping to ourselves for now. We'll let everyone know when we find her. We can reveal that the Electra lies within a 500 square mile area close to Howland Island. The indications are that Amelia may have got within 50 miles of her target. The greatest aviation mystery may finally be solved. My gut feel is we're going to find it. I feel very good about it. If he's right, then this will be one of the great pieces of modern detective work. If not, then Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan will still be out there, somewhere. But Amelia's legend lives on. She remains the Queen of the Skies, a brave and beautiful woman who rewrote the record books inspiring a whole generation. Amelia Earhart died in a pioneering attempt to show the world the possibilities of flight. In the process, she helped to lay the basis for modern air travel, bringing the most remote and beautiful corners of our planet within our reach.