A deep-sea wreckage hunting company named DeepSeaVision claims to have found 1930s aviator Emilia Earhart’s lost Lockheed 10-E Electra twin-engine airplane at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Earhart disappeared in 1937 while attempting to fly across the Pacific. For decades rumors and conspiracies have captivated the minds of people around the globe as explorers have searched for the legendary aviator and the lost airplane.
Finding Earheart has been a difficult task given the vast expanse of the ocean in which she disappeared. Tens of thousands of miles of incredibly deep water scattered with small tropical islands and very few runways. The mystery of Earhart is further complicated by the remnants of the Second World War, which raged in the Pacific for nearly 4 years. Thousands of brave U.S. servicemen lost their lives in their effort to stop the empire of Japan from dominating the Asian continent and the Pacific.
Earhart’s plane was a small twin engine aircraft designed by Lockheed in 1934, only 149 of the aircraft were ever produced. With a range of 810mi it’s possible Earhart could have landed or crashed almost anywhere in the Pacific. With so few produced identifying the wreckage would not be difficult with submarine photographs of the exterior.
DeepSeaVision uses a type of virtual sonar, combining traditional sonar with software designed to enhance the readings so wreckage is easier to locate. The problem with this is while the Lockheed design in 1934 was unique, by 1940 it had major competition. The North American Aviation (NAA) began production on a new aircraft, the B-25 medium range bomber. More than 10 thousand of these planes were produced, and during the war thousands were deployed to Pacific combat zones.
The B-25 was mass produced with several variants and were heavily used in the Pacific theater to bomb and strafe Japanese targets, including the city of Tokyo and Japanese mainland. From an overhead view as seen in the sonar images, these two plans bare similarities than cannot be readily determined based on crash damaged debris at the bottom of the sea.
The “date line theory” puts Earhart’s possible route through where some of the heaviest fighting in the war later occurred. The B-25 bomber had a range of 1,350 miles, meaning a pilot could have crashed almost anywhere in that region. The ocean exploration company has not disclosed specifics about where the crashed plane is located but seems to wholly ignore the possibility of this wreckage being the remains of a US service member and not Earhart. The sheer number of bombers lost in the area puts the odds in favor of it being a military aircraft. More aircraft were lost in the early 1940’s than exist in service in the world today.
The news from DeepSeaVision has gone viral because of the extraordinary claim. Based on the evidence, the visual similarities, and the sheer number of planes produced, it’s likely that wishful thinking is playing a part in the story. Most mainstream media companies have no one on staff that has expertise on World War II history and are quick to latch onto famous historical figures that are easily recognizable. It’s not fair to say that no one cares about lost US servicemen, but a forgotten pilot and crew from an anonymous plane isn’t the hot story that makes the morning news.
The search for Earhart is important; however, many servicemen have been returned to be buried at home in the United States thanks to the ongoing expeditions trying to find her. Perhaps Emilia Earhart’s greatest contribution to aviation has been returning dozens of lost military remains home and giving solace to the families and descendants of the veterans. The remains of most pilots and crew lost at sea are never recovered. A core belief among military veterans is that no one is left behind, and eventually, their souls will find rest on American soil, the country they died defending.
Could this be a case of mistaken identity? Perhaps so, even hopefully so. The sacrifice Earhart made elevated her to an international superstar, inspiring thousands to pursue careers in aviation. The sacrifice of war pilots will never be repaid. Repatriation of the remains is the least we can do to honor them. Only time and further expeditions will determine what plane is down there, and either way, it’s a very important discovery.
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