Amelia Earhart, born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897 and disappeared in the region of the Phoenix Islands archipelago (current Kiribati) on July 2, 1937, was an American aviator. She is famous in particular for having been, in June 1928, the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane.
Childhood
Amelia Mary Earhart, daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1868–1940) and Amelia "Amy" Otis Earhart (1869–1962), was born in Atchison, Kansas, in the home of her maternal grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis (1827-1912). He was a former U.S. federal judge, president of Atchison Savings Bank, and prominent Atchison citizen. Alfred Otis had not approved of the marriage and was unhappy with Edwin's progress in his legal studies.
Amelia was given the names of her two grandmothers (Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton), in keeping with family tradition.
From an early age, Amelia, nicknamed "Meeley" or "Millie", was a leader. Her younger sister, born two years after her, Grace Muriel Earhart (1899-1998), nicknamed "Pidge", behaved as a faithful follower.
Both girls continued to respond to their nicknames well into adulthood. Their behavior was unconventional, since for example Amy Earhart saw no need to raise her children as "nice little girls".
In 1920, a first flight gave him a passion for flight. She became an apprentice nurse and then a social worker and paid for flying lessons, saving enough money to buy herself a bright yellow biplane, the Canary. On October 22, 1922, Earhart reached an altitude of 4,300 m, a record for an aviator at that time.
Solo transatlantic flight of 1932
In 1928, she achieved phenomenal notoriety by crossing the Atlantic with two flight companions. At the age of 34, on the morning of May 20, 1932, Earhart set out from Harbor Grace in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. After this solo flight lasting 14 hours and 56 minutes, she landed in a meadow in Culmore, north of Derry, in Northern Ireland:she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone by plane.
Around the world in 1937 and disappearance
She disappeared on July 2, 1937, after being last seen in Lae, New Guinea as she and her navigator Fred Noonan attempted to circumnavigate the globe from the east, crossing the equator. , on a twin-engine Lockheed Electra 10-E. A runway had been set up on tiny Howland Island, in the middle of the Pacific, to allow an essential stopover between Lae and Hawaii, but the plane never arrived there. The United States Coast Guard had sent a radio-equipped ship, the Itasca, there. At 7:12 p.m. GMT, 7:42 a.m. local time, the Itasca received the message “We should be above you, but we can’t see you. Fuel begins to drop", at 7:30 p.m. GMT, 8 a.m. local "We can hear you but cannot find a minimum, please give us a bearing and answer on 310 by phone", at 20 13:13 GMT, 8:43 local time "KHAQQ at Itasca, we are on the right 157,337, we will repeat this message on 6,210 kilocycles, wait...", finally at 8:55 local time "We are looking north and to the south”5. The "line 157 337" has the clear meaning of a line of height. Observation of the Sun at sunrise, at azimuth 67°, had no doubt enabled Noonan to pinpoint the position of the plane in that direction and to know what distance remained to be run for Howland to be somewhere in the direction exactly perpendicular, 157 or 337°. Either Noonan's astronomical point was too imprecise, or the plane was shifted too far, right or left, to the line in question, this method is not enough for Earhart and Noonan to reach Howland. The Itasca crew never saw or heard the plane.
Research and hypotheses
The disappearance is due to an overly unreliable method of navigation, in which the radio direction-finding aid on which the crew relied could not be obtained mainly due to lack of sufficient preparation. The only information provided by the time of sunrise left the crew in the uncertainty of their latitude position, which led them either to a forced landing, when the aircraft's fuel reserves were exhausted , or a makeshift landing on an island other than Howland.
The American government, led by President Roosevelt, launched a dozen ships and fifty planes in search of Earhart and Noonan for four months. No trace of their aircraft was detected, nor were any testimonies collected on the last islands they might have flown over.
First research and abandonment of the hypothesis of a landing at the Phoenix Islands
When at 10:40 a.m. (local time) on July 2 it was certain that the plane was no longer in the air, the Itasca immediately sailed to search for it, first in the northwest of Howland. On the evening of July 2, a Catalina seaplane took off from Pearl Harbor in the direction of Howland, but had to turn back because of bad weather and returned empty-handed to its base after a heroic flight of 24 hours and 3 minutes. At 2312 GMT on July 3, the battleship Colorado set sail from Hawaii and could, from July 7, launch her three seaplanes on reconnaissance over the Phoenix Islands, where it was logical to think, these being on the same straight 157-337 as Howland, which Amelia Earhart had been able to land. In his report, Lieutenant Lambrecht noted of the July 9 overflight of Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro, Kiribati) that "...signs of recent occupation were clearly visible, but repeated overflights were unsuccessful. to elicit the slightest response from potential residents, so that we concluded that there was no one". Except during the transitory stay of the survivors of the sinking of the freighter Norwich City in 1929, the island had not had any inhabitants since 1892. The commander of the Colorado noted as for him in his report that no sign of habitation had been observed on Gardner and telegraphed on 10 July to Admiral Murphin that all the Phoenix Islands had been located and carefully searched for traces of Amelia Earhart or inhabitants. The US Navy concludes that Earhart and Noonan had disappeared at sea.
Post-disappearance radio messages
Numerous radio operators reported, in the hours following the disappearance, receiving messages that may have been transmitted by Earhart and Noonan. These messages had to be viewed with caution, as messages requesting news from the airmen could have been interpreted as messages sent by them. Some of these messages could also be deliberate fakes. The assumption that some of the messages were genuine, coupled with the information provided by Lockheed engineers that the plane could only transmit if it was on land and able to run an engine to recharge its batteries, was one of the reasons for the reconnaissance undertaken by the Colorado in the archipelago of the Phoenix Islands. The only message received by an official service was, on the evening of July 4, a clumsily coded message in Morse code which the US Navy operators in Wailupe (Hawaii) transcribed as a series of words without clear meaning (and therefore untranslatable):"281 north Howland call KHAQQ beyond north don't [or won't] hold with us much longer above water shut off". The first three words caused renewed interest in the area north of Howland, regardless of the possibility that the clumsy operator might have wanted to code anything other than "281 N". Pan Am operators had obtained radio-direction bearings converging on the Phoenix Islands archipelago from Mokapu, Midway and Wake Islands.
Messages picked up by radio amateurs on the American continent gave rise in certain cases to articles in the local newspapers. Others remained unknown for a long time. In 2000, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) was contacted by Betty Klenck, a former resident of St. Petersburg, Florida who, in July 1937, had written down what she had gathered from a message she immediately attributed to Amelia Earhart. Betty's notes, which have been preserved, repeatedly refer to rising water and "something that sounded like 'New York City' to the ear". Betty Klenck's father, then a teenager, alerted the Coast Guard, who told him that the government had boats in the area and that everything was under control.
Later discoveries and modern research
In 1940, a British officer found thirteen bones on Nikumaroro, including a skull, the remains of a man's shoe and a woman's shoe, and a sextant box. He then sent them to Fiji where Dr. Hoodless, senior physician at the Fiji Islands School of Medicine, thought he could conclude that the bones were those of a man, about 166 m tall, but the remains disappeared. TIGHAR asked two forensic anthropologists to reanalyze the measurements recorded by Dr. Hoodless. They concluded that the bones were more likely those of a woman than a man and more likely of northern European origin. In December 2010, a university team announced that they had found three bone fragments that could be those of a human finger in the area of the island where the remains had previously been discovered. DNA analysis has not, by current means, confirmed that these fragments are of human origin. In August 2012, researchers spotted underwater debris to the west of the same island that may have come from Earhart and Noonan's plane, including items resembling the remains of a landing gear. . According to these researchers, the plane could have landed on the coral reef bordering the island and then been washed away by the tide, similar to the twin-engine Croydon (en) ST-18 which had strayed above from the Timor Sea in September 1936.
Other assumptions
Since 1937 and in the absence of trace of the plane, several hypotheses have been put forward, assuming that his death would not be due to a banal accident. None of these hypotheses, detailed below, could be proven, verified or confirmed:
The world tour was a pretext for a spy flight (similar to that of the U2), which the American government would have commissioned, over Japanese installations in the Pacific. Spotted, the plane would have been shot down by the Japanese DCA;
Amelia would have been captured by the Japanese, who used it throughout the duration of the conflict, along with other Anglo-Saxon prisoners and English-speaking Japanese, under the pseudonym of Tokyo Rose as a psychological weapon or pro-Japanese propaganda, with the aim of demotivating the Marines via radio commentaries where, between jazz pieces and "hits" of the moment, the 'infidelity of their companions who remained in the country and the credulity of the recruits, used as cannon fodder;
She would have survived, after a makeshift landing, on an island in the Pacific in the company of natives.
Achievements and records
Female altitude record:14,000 feet (1922)
First woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1928 (pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot Louis Gordon)
First woman to cross the United States alone, from New York to Los Angeles there and back (1928)
First woman to pilot an autogyro and altitude record (15,000 feet) (1931)
First person to cross the United States by autogyro (1932)
First woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo (May 20-21, 1932) and first person to cross it twice (1932)
First woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross (1932) as well as the gold medal of the National Geographic Society
First person to make a solo flight between Honolulu, Hawaii and Oakland, California (January 11, 1935)
First person to make a flight l solo between Los Angeles and Mexico City (1935)
First person to complete a non-stop solo flight between Mexico City and Newark, New Jersey (1935) (in 14 hours and 19 minutes)
She was nicknamed Miss Lindy, in a nod to North Atlantic winner Charles Lindbergh, because of a certain physical resemblance to him.
Honours and tributes
Decorated on June 4, 1932 with the Legion of Honor by the Minister of Air Paul Painlevé
Earhart (moon), natural satellite of Saturn, was named in his honor.
She is inscribed in the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Google pays tribute to her on July 24, 2012 with a "doodle" of her image.
References in the media
Audiovisual
Incarnations
Rosalind Russell played a fictional character modeled after Amelia Earhart in Lothar Mendes' film Flight for Freedom/Lost in the Tropics (1943). In this adaptation, filmed in wartime, it is the patriotic version of the disappearance that was evoked, of the beautiful aviator sacrificing herself to carry out an American spy project on Japanese positions.
Hilary Swank played her in 2009 at the cinema in Mira Nair's film Amelia, with Richard Gere who plays her husband, publisher George Putnam, and Ewan McGregor who plays her lover, pilot Gene Vidal31.
In 1994, a television movie was made under the title Amelia Earhart, the last flight32 with Diane Keaton in the role of Amelia, also with Rutger Hauer and Bruce Dern, and directed by Yves Simoneau.
Amy Adams portrays Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum 2.
Sharon Lawrence portrays her in the first episode of the second season of Star Trek:Voyager, The Thirty-Seven.
Mention
In his book Sahara, Clive Cussler gives her the name of Kitty Mannock. His hero, Dirk Pitt, finds the aviator, dead in his plane in the Sahara.
An episode of the documentary series Les énigmes de l'histoire is dedicated to him33. ' /> In the television series Lost, his name is used as an anagram in one episode.
In the television series Friends (season 9, episode 18), Ross wants to set up an amusement park in his memory if he ever wins the lottery.
In the series Les Griffins, it is implied that Amelia died in reality killed by Charles Lindbergh. She would have witnessed the accidental disappearance of baby Lindbergh, sucked by the toilet bowl operated by the father.
In season 2 of the science fiction series Sanctuary, the credits present a photo of the main character, Helen Magnus, with Amelia Earhart in front of her plane.
It is implied in the Torchwood episode Out of Time that she would have passed through a space rift -temporal.
His name is mentioned in one of the episodes of the television series Corner Gas, season 2, An American…
In an episode of the cartoon Phinea and Ferb, a friend of theirs, makes reference to Amelia Earhart seeing a plane at the bottom of the ocean.
In the television series Star Trek:Voyager (season 2, episode 1), she is found frozen on a distant planet.
In the film Night at the Museum 2 she is one of the protagonists main characters of the film, alongside the night watchman.
She appears in the credits of the television series Star Trek:Enterprise
In the manga City Hall, she appears as being the bodyguard of Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle.
In the animated film Fly me to the moon, the grandfather is said to have helped her during the crossing of the Atlantic.
In the movie Caddyshack, Rodney Dangerfield refers to Amelia Earhart during the boat scene.
In the book Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira (2014), the heroine Laurel dedicates one of her letters to her34.
In the manga "City Hall" by Rémi Guerrin and Guillaume Lapeyre. She is one of the main characters.
Music
Iain Matthews' band Plainsong released the album In Search of Amelia Earhart in 1972.
A song by Canadian singer Joni Mitchell (Amelia) refers to her.
A song by Canadian band Bachman-Turner Overdrive is named after her.
A song by English songwriter Tom McRae (The Ballad of Amelia Earhart) is named after her.
Her name is quoted in the song Someday Well Know by the New Radicals.
Her name is quoted in the song Dinner With Gershwin by Donna Summer.
A singer Heather Nova's song I Miss My Sky (Amelia Earhart's Last Days) refers to her.
A song by Australian band The Lucksmiths The Golden Age of Aviation refers to her, and begins with an excerpt from one of her speeches during a flight arrival in Australia.
The new radicals mention her in their r song Someday we'll know
Other Media
Hugo Pratt, in Mû, introduces Corto Maltese to the aviator Tracy Eberhard, who declares to him "Amelia Erhart, my colleague, told me a lot about you" and strangely resembles Amelia Earhart.
She appears on Easter Island in the episode "Moai Better Blues" of the video game Sam and Max:Beyond Time and Space as a baby (she drank the water from the fountain of youth), and in the episode The Tomb of Sammun-Mak of the video game Sam and Max:The Devil's Playhouse also in the form of a baby (the episode takes place around 1901).
Charlaine Harris features her in her short story The Britlingens Go to Hell published in the anthology (en) Must Love Hellhounds, Berkley Trade, 2009.
In the Disney animated film Treasure Planet (2002), the character of the captain of the RLS Héritage, Amélia, is inspired by Amélia Earhart.
American science fiction writer, Robert Bloch, pr offers in his short story A Toy for Juliette, published in 1967 in Harlan Ellison's anthology, Dangereuses Visions (Dangerous Visions), an explanation of his disappearance. To satisfy her granddaughter's sadistic impulses, Juliette, a man from the future with a time machine, regularly travels to the past to kidnap men and women and deliver them to Juliette's acts of barbarism. He reported to him in particular Benjamin Bathurst, the crew of the Mary Celeste, Jack the Ripper and therefore Amelia Earhart, explaining in this way several mysterious disappearances.