One More Good Flight: The Amelia Earhart Tragedy

Author Ric Gillespie is the founder of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), pronounced "tiger." A flier since high school, he served as an army communications officer for an aviation battalion of the First Cavalry Division, and then was a risk manager and accident investigator in the aviation insurance industry. Initially in 1985, TIGHAR focused on the mystery of two French fliers who disappeared, maybe in Newfoundland, trying to cross the Atlantic east to west shortly before Lindbergh crossed it west to east. Gillespie wanted nothing to do with the Earhart disappearance, accepting an official verdict which couldn't be scientifically proven nor even studied, absent a submersible and camera able to find a needle in a haystack, somewhere in a huge Pacific expanse, several thousand feet deeper than the Titanic much bigger than Earhart's plane and in a smaller Atlantic search area. But three years later, a pair of TIGHAR members who had been WWII military navigators advanced a new theory, based on what Earhart said in her last vocal radio messages, while still airborne, as to how she and navigator Fred Noonan were trying to get un-lost and find their Howland island target. Gillespie judged the new idea plausible. TIGHAR has investigated it ever since.There are four main theories of what happened: (1) "crashed and sank" in the ocean, what the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy eventually concluded in 1937 and Smithsonian officials still think today; (2) "Japanese capture" with various subsets and outcomes focused on the Marshall Islands NW of Howland; (3) "castaway" pursued by TIGHAR with Earhart landing and marooned on Gardner island (now Nikumaroro) about 400 miles to the SSE of Howland; and (4) "East New Britain" a turnaround nearly back to her New Guinea takeoff point. Theories (2), (3), and (4) were advanced and promoted starting about 1960, 1988, and 1993.I'm a TIGHAR rookie, having joined in June 2023, owing to a brother who was born the exact same day Earhart vanished, plus a Nikumaroro travel brochure I got in the mail even though I passed on a TIGHAR expedition tag-along. TIGHAR has made 12 trips to the atoll, and has probed archives on other central Pacific islands and in the USA and UK. There's a mountain of resultant info on its website, including an online magazine by which to track research advances (and misdirections) from 1988 forward chronologically. A non-TIGHAR source characterized events as much a mix-up as a mystery, with communications preparatory to the flight, during the flight, and after the disappearance being a big mess with too many players not telling each other enough, or not doing so in time. There weren't any cell phones, emails, listservs, or webpages back then. Gillespie praises Earhart's bravery and feminist legacy but criticizes sloppiness such as not learning Morse code nor how to operate her direction finder. Others get criticism as well, involving a ship commander still searching the wrong place even after that had been discredited, a flyover of Gardner lasting a mere 10 minutes without any followup surface visit, and authorities failing to respect Earhart distress calls heard long-distance by North American ham radio citizenry, then not monitoring the same high-frequency "harmonics" they were listening on. Lots of perfect-storm bad luck didn't help.What Earhart had good experience with, was prepared for, and had topnotch consultation about (from an engineer with the plane's Lockheed manufacturer), was fuel consumption estimation, usage efficiency, and reserve cushioning about four hours worth beyond what it would take to fly to Howland. The differing theories have a parallel to the porridge in the Goldilocks tale. IMHO, crashed-and-sank suggests stupidly allocating too little fuel and running out, and Japanese-capture and East-New-Britain require too much fuel she didn't have. TIGHAR has reviewed the facts and numbers in detail, applying abundant expertise, and has the Goldilocks fuel story just right. Crashed-and-sank would make more sense if the asserted reason for an ocean ditch was a sudden malfunction as occurred, say, with the recent Brazilian accident. But even that would be inconsistent with TIGHAR findings including fishing gear later Gardner islander-colonists said they made from plane wreckage, other anecdotal colonist reports of such wreckage, a photo of a seeming landing gear sticking up offshore only three months after Earhart went missing, British records of a partial skeleton found in 1940 at a castaway campsite with bone measurements modern forensic anthropology has judged to be a good match, plexiglas pieces with thickness and curvature the same as the plane's cabin windows, female cosmetic and zipper pull artifacts absent another 1930s American-woman-on-Gardner to pin them on, and post-disappearance radio listening accounts culled to those most credible. It's a strong evidentiary put-together, well told.

Surprisingly well written and readable. I say surprisingly because I expected the subject matter to be somewhat dry and perhaps covered in earlier books, but found the writing to be very interesting and engaging. Even knowing how Earhart’s tragedy was going to turn out, I read succeeding chapters with an ever growing sense of dread as her journey came nearer the end. In a few places I thought the author was guessing at events, but it turned out his suppositions were supported by perhaps a fragment of a radio message or some other indication unearthed in the incredible depth of research over the decades. The author writes from the standpoint of the Earhart mystery as being solved; this is initially a little jarring but eventually very hard to argue with or doubt. The amount and quality of research leads inexorably to the conclusions presented in the book. Perhaps someday someone will find the Electra or the bones and finally put the whole matter to bed, until that day Tighar’s work and conclusions have to be considered the definitive “answer” to what happened to Amelia Earhart.

Book has info on Earhart that I never heard before. Doesn't paint her as a wonder woman just the facts. a good an interesting read.

I preordered “One More Good Flight” from Amazon, and it arrived on September 18th. I finished it this afternoon and was even more impressed than I was when I first read Gillespie’s 2006 work,”Finding Amelia” many years ago. This most recent documentation of the voluminous quality work done regarding Amelia Earhart’s last flight by The International Group For Historical Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) permits readers to enjoy a fascinating experience examining the data gathered and the related analyses and to form their own opinions about Earhart’s last flight. I first heard about her disappearance, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, in the 1960s, a cautionary aviation tale whose basics were known to me as I was obtaining my first and only pilot’s license in the middle of that decade (mere Private Pilot, Single Engine Land, VFR). I enjoy hearing and reading about human beings with a variety of impressive admirable traits; Earhart certainly had those, but IMHO the folks at TIGHAR, documented by Gillespie, had her beat overall. It is reassuring, especially these days, too encounter, even If only in a non-fiction book, such fellow human beings.

This is THE book that closes the books on this subject, and most importantly, should be the bible for All aviation researchers, museum curators, and education institutions.Ric has very succinctly laid the path that one has the hope should reinvigorate all those interested, working or aspiring to become custodians of aviation history. Every aviation museum should make this book mandatory reading for ALL staff.Finally, "One More Good Flight: The Amelia Earhart Tragedy" is fascinating as virtually every page peels another layer of mystery, another depth to explore, ¨oops, gotta go back ...missed that one" , thus off again on a new tack pulling more layers into view, until the end. BUY IT READ IT TEACH the techniques and enjoy the great integrity of the author. BRAVO, Well Done, and Sets A New PROPER Standard for Aviation Historical Research!

Excellent documentary on one of the theories about what happened to Amelia Earhart.

As a long-time member of TIGHAR, I was happy to see the whole story laid out in meticulous detail by Ric Gillespie. The research is unassailable and should put an end to the wild stories surrounding Amelia's final flight.