Fred Noonan
Encyclopedia
Frederick Joseph "Fred" Noonan (April 4, 1893 – missing July 2, 1937, declared dead June 20, 1938) was an American flight navigator
, sea captain and aviation
pioneer who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific Ocean during the 1930s. He was last seen in Lae
, New Guinea
, on July 2, 1937, and disappeared with Amelia Earhart
somewhere over the Central Pacific Ocean
during their attempted round-the-world flight.
(the Chicago
area). His parents were Joseph T. Noonan (born in Lincolnville, Maine, in 1861) and Catherine Egan (born in London, England). Noonan's father died when he was four, and three years later a census
report lists him as living alone in a Chicago boarding house, although relatives or family friends were likely looking after him. In his own words, Noonan "left school in summer of 1905 and went to Seattle, Washington
," where he found work as a seaman.
At the age of 17, Noonan shipped out of Seattle as an ordinary seaman on a British sailing bark, the Crompton. Between 1910 and 1915, Noonan worked on over a dozen ships, rising to the ratings of quartermaster
and bosun's mate. He continued working on merchant
ships throughout World War I
. Serving as an officer on ammunition ships, his harrowing wartime service included being on three vessels that were sunk from under him by U-boat
s. After the war, Noonan continued in the Merchant Marine and achieved a measure of prominence as a ship's officer. Throughout the 1920s, his maritime career was characterized by steadily increasing ratings and "good" (typically the highest) work performance reviews. Noonan married Josephine Sullivan in 1927 at Jackson, Mississippi
. After a honeymoon
in Cuba
, they settled in New Orleans.
as a navigation instructor in Miami and an airport manager in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
, eventually assuming the duties of inspector for all of the company's airports.
In March 1935, Noonan was the navigator
on the first Pan Am Sikorsky S-42
clipper at San Francisco Bay
. In April he navigated the historic round-trip China Clipper
flight between San Francisco and Honolulu piloted by Ed Musick
(who was featured on the cover of Time
magazine that year). Noonan was subsequently responsible for mapping Pan Am's clipper routes across the Pacific Ocean
, participating in many flights to Midway Island
, Wake Island
, Guam
, the Philippines
, and Hong Kong
. In addition to more modern navigational tools, Noonan as a licensed sea captain was known for carrying a ship's sextant on these flights.
1937 was a year of transition for Fred Noonan, whose reputation as an expert navigator, along with his role in the development of commercial airline navigation, had already earned him a place in aviation history. The tall, very thin, dark auburn-hair
ed and blue
-eye
d 43-year-old navigator was living in Los Angeles
. He resigned from Pan Am because he felt he had risen through the ranks as far as he could as a navigator, and he had an interest in starting a navigation school. In March, he divorced his wife, Josie, in Ciudad Juárez
, Mexico
. Two weeks later, he married Mary Bea Martinelli (born Passadori) of Oakland, California
. Noonan was rumored to be a heavy drinker of alcoholic beverages. That was fairly common during this era and there is no contemporary evidence Noonan was an alcoholic, although decades later, a few writers and others made some hearsay claims that he was.
met Noonan through mutual connections in the Los Angeles aviation community and chose him to serve as her navigator on her World Flight in the Lockheed Electra 10E
that she had purchased with funds donated by Purdue University
. She planned to circumnavigate the globe at equatorial latitudes. Although this aircraft was of an advanced type for its time, and was dubbed a "flying laboratory" by the press, little real science was planned. The world was already crisscrossed by commercial airline routes (many of which Noonan himself had first navigated and mapped), and the flight is now regarded by some as an adventurous publicity stunt for Earhart's gathering public attention for her next book. Noonan was probably attracted to this project because Earhart's mass market fame would almost certainly generate a lot of publicity, and this in turn could reasonably be expected to attract attention to him and the navigation school that he hoped to establish when they returned.
The first attempt began with a record-breaking flight from Burbank, California
, to Honolulu. However, while the Electra was taking off to begin its second leg to Howland Island
, its wing clipped the ground. Earhart cut an engine off to maintain balance, the aircraft ground looped
, and its landing gear collapsed. Although there were no injuries, the Lockheed Electra had to be shipped by sea back to Los Angeles for expensive repairs. Over one month later, they tried starting again, this time leaving California
in the opposite (eastward) direction.
Earhart characterized the pace of their 40-day, eastward trip from Burbank to New Guinea
as "leisurely". After completing about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey, they took off from Lae
on July 2, 1937, and headed for Howland Island
, a tiny sliver of land in the Pacific Ocean, barely 2,000 meters long, with only one runway and a temporary refueling station. Their plan for the 18-hour-long flight was to reach the vicinity of Howland using Noonan's celestial navigation abilities and then find Howland by using radio signals transmitted by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Itasca
.
Through a combined sequence of misunderstandings or mishaps (that are still controversial), over scattered clouds, the final approach to Howland Island failed, although Earhart stated by radio that they believed they were in the immediate vicinity of Howland. Two-way radio contact was never established, and the aviators and their aircraft disappeared somewhere over the Central Pacific Ocean
. Despite an unprecedented, extensive search by the U.S. Navy — including the use of search planes from an aircraft carrier
— and the U.S. Coast Guard, no traces of them or their Electra were ever found.
Later research showed that Howland's position was misplaced on their chart by approximately five nautical miles. There is also some motion picture evidence that a belly antenna on their Electra might have snapped on takeoff (the purpose of this antenna has not been identified, however radio communications seemed normal as they climbed away from Lae). One relatively new theory suggests that Noonan may have made a mistake in navigation due to the flight's crossing of the International Date Line
.
) in the Phoenix Island Group
to the southeast, and there is a range of documented, archaeological, and anecdotal evidence supporting the hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan found Gardner Island, uninhabited at the time, landed the Electra on a flat reef near the wreck of a freighter, and sent sporadic radio messages from there. In 1940, Gerald Gallagher
, a British colonial officer and a licensed pilot, radioed his superiors to tell them that he believed he had found Earhart's skeleton, along with a sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner. In a 1998 report to the American Anthroplogical Association, researchers, including a forensic anthropologist and an archaeologist, concluded, "What we can be certain of is that bones were found on the island in 1939–40, associated with what were observed to be women’s shoes and a navigator’s sextant box, and that the morphology of the recovered bones, insofar as we can tell by applying contemporary forensic methods to measurements taken at the time, appears consistent with a female of Earhart’s height and ethnic origin. "
Contradictory research has recently been advanced; it is possible to set course for and see Gardner from a point on the over Howland sunline (passing seven mls east of), but one does not reach Gardner by following such line. A position line is part of a circle circumference and may be considered a straight line, only for limited distances. The Sun´s azimuth change per hour is about 15 arcdegrees, whereas the Howland-to-Gardner flight (409 st.mls) would have taken 2 hours 55 minutes (@ 140 mph). As a result the aircraft, when having followed the LOP by astro, would have passed far northwards of Gardner when reaching its meridian. The "Gardner" hypothesis origins from a 1980s book, where navigator Paul Rafford, Jr. "fell off his chair when seeing that the position line points in the direction of Gardner Island". Apart from such supposition, it was with the available fuel reserves (45 gals) impossible to reach Gardner from the Howland region: the route would have taken 120 US gallons at least. Recent research has indicated that on July 2, 1937, Earhart´s aircraft was not (contrary to current literature) flown over the great circle New Guinea-to-Howland.
in "The 37s", an episode of Star Trek: Voyager
. The character of an aircraft pilot named Fred Noonan is portrayed by actor Eddie Firestone in "The Long Train", a 1961 episode of the television series The Untouchables
. Both a baseball stadium and an aircraft rental agency are named after Fred Noonan. A 1990 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries," still playing on cable, featured Mark Stitham as Noonan. In addition, Rutger Hauer has portrayed Noonan in the TV movie Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (1994) starring Diane Keaton
, and Christopher Eccleston
has portrayed Noonan in the recent biographical movie Amelia
(2009).
Fred Noonan is also mentioned in the song "Amelia" on Bell X1's 2009 album Blue Lights on the Runway
, which contemplates the last moments and the fates of Amelia Earhart and Noonan.
Navigator
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigator's primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times. Responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the Captain or aircraft Commander of estimated timing to...
, sea captain and aviation
Aviation
Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...
pioneer who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific Ocean during the 1930s. He was last seen in Lae
Lae
Lae, the capital of Morobe Province, is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located at the start of the Highlands Highway which is the main land transport corridor from the Highlands region to the coast...
, New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, on July 2, 1937, and disappeared with Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
somewhere over the Central Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
during their attempted round-the-world flight.
Early life and maritime career
Noonan was born in Cook County, IllinoisCook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
(the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
area). His parents were Joseph T. Noonan (born in Lincolnville, Maine, in 1861) and Catherine Egan (born in London, England). Noonan's father died when he was four, and three years later a census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
report lists him as living alone in a Chicago boarding house, although relatives or family friends were likely looking after him. In his own words, Noonan "left school in summer of 1905 and went to Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
," where he found work as a seaman.
At the age of 17, Noonan shipped out of Seattle as an ordinary seaman on a British sailing bark, the Crompton. Between 1910 and 1915, Noonan worked on over a dozen ships, rising to the ratings of quartermaster
Quartermaster
Quartermaster refers to two different military occupations depending on if the assigned unit is land based or naval.In land armies, especially US units, it is a term referring to either an individual soldier or a unit who specializes in distributing supplies and provisions to troops. The senior...
and bosun's mate. He continued working on merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
ships throughout World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Serving as an officer on ammunition ships, his harrowing wartime service included being on three vessels that were sunk from under him by U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
s. After the war, Noonan continued in the Merchant Marine and achieved a measure of prominence as a ship's officer. Throughout the 1920s, his maritime career was characterized by steadily increasing ratings and "good" (typically the highest) work performance reviews. Noonan married Josephine Sullivan in 1927 at Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
. After a honeymoon
Honeymoon
-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, they settled in New Orleans.
Navigator for Pan Am
Following a distinguished 22-year career at sea which included sailing around Cape Horn seven times (three times under sail), Noonan contemplated a new career direction. After learning to fly in the late 1920s he received a "limited commercial pilot's license" in 1930, on which he listed his occupation as "aviator." In following year as a Merchant Mariner, he was awarded "license #121190, Class Master, any ocean," the qualifications of a merchant ship's captain. During the early 1930s, he worked for Pan American World AirwaysPan American World Airways
Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991...
as a navigation instructor in Miami and an airport manager in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....
, eventually assuming the duties of inspector for all of the company's airports.
In March 1935, Noonan was the navigator
Air navigation
The basic principles of air navigation are identical to general navigation, which includes the process of planning, recording, and controlling the movement of a craft from one place to another....
on the first Pan Am Sikorsky S-42
Sikorsky S-42
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Davies, R.E.G. Pan Am: An Airline and its Aircraft. New York: Orion Books, 1987. ISBN 0-517-56639-7....
clipper at San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
. In April he navigated the historic round-trip China Clipper
China Clipper
The China Clipper was the first of three Martin M-130 four-engine flying boats built for Pan American Airways and was used to inaugurate the first commercial transpacific air service from San Francisco to Manila in November, 1935. Built at a cost of $417,000 by the Glenn L...
flight between San Francisco and Honolulu piloted by Ed Musick
Ed Musick
Edwin Charles Musick was Chief Pilot for Pan American World Airways and pioneered many of Pan Am's transoceanic routes including the famous route across the Pacific Ocean on the China Clipper....
(who was featured on the cover of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine that year). Noonan was subsequently responsible for mapping Pan Am's clipper routes across the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, participating in many flights to Midway Island
Midway Atoll
Midway Atoll is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean, near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, about one-third of the way between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Tokyo, Japan. Unique among the Hawaiian islands, Midway observes UTC-11 , eleven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time and one hour...
, Wake Island
Wake Island
Wake Island is a coral atoll having a coastline of in the North Pacific Ocean, located about two-thirds of the way from Honolulu west to Guam east. It is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior...
, Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. In addition to more modern navigational tools, Noonan as a licensed sea captain was known for carrying a ship's sextant on these flights.
1937 was a year of transition for Fred Noonan, whose reputation as an expert navigator, along with his role in the development of commercial airline navigation, had already earned him a place in aviation history. The tall, very thin, dark auburn-hair
Hair
Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class....
ed and blue
Blue
Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...
-eye
Human eye
The human eye is an organ which reacts to light for several purposes. As a conscious sense organ, the eye allows vision. Rod and cone cells in the retina allow conscious light perception and vision including color differentiation and the perception of depth...
d 43-year-old navigator was living in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. He resigned from Pan Am because he felt he had risen through the ranks as far as he could as a navigator, and he had an interest in starting a navigation school. In March, he divorced his wife, Josie, in Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Two weeks later, he married Mary Bea Martinelli (born Passadori) of Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. Noonan was rumored to be a heavy drinker of alcoholic beverages. That was fairly common during this era and there is no contemporary evidence Noonan was an alcoholic, although decades later, a few writers and others made some hearsay claims that he was.
Earhart world flight
Amelia EarhartAmelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
met Noonan through mutual connections in the Los Angeles aviation community and chose him to serve as her navigator on her World Flight in the Lockheed Electra 10E
Lockheed Model 10 Electra
The Lockheed Model 10 Electra was a twin-engine, all-metal monoplane airliner developed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in the 1930s to compete with the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2...
that she had purchased with funds donated by Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
. She planned to circumnavigate the globe at equatorial latitudes. Although this aircraft was of an advanced type for its time, and was dubbed a "flying laboratory" by the press, little real science was planned. The world was already crisscrossed by commercial airline routes (many of which Noonan himself had first navigated and mapped), and the flight is now regarded by some as an adventurous publicity stunt for Earhart's gathering public attention for her next book. Noonan was probably attracted to this project because Earhart's mass market fame would almost certainly generate a lot of publicity, and this in turn could reasonably be expected to attract attention to him and the navigation school that he hoped to establish when they returned.
The first attempt began with a record-breaking flight from Burbank, California
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
, to Honolulu. However, while the Electra was taking off to begin its second leg to Howland Island
Howland Island
Howland Island is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States. Geographically, it is part...
, its wing clipped the ground. Earhart cut an engine off to maintain balance, the aircraft ground looped
Ground loop (aviation)
In aviation, a ground loop is a rapid rotation of a fixed-wing aircraft in the horizontal plane while on the ground. Aerodynamic forces may cause the advancing wing to rise, which may then cause the other wingtip to touch the ground...
, and its landing gear collapsed. Although there were no injuries, the Lockheed Electra had to be shipped by sea back to Los Angeles for expensive repairs. Over one month later, they tried starting again, this time leaving California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in the opposite (eastward) direction.
Earhart characterized the pace of their 40-day, eastward trip from Burbank to New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
as "leisurely". After completing about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey, they took off from Lae
Lae
Lae, the capital of Morobe Province, is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located at the start of the Highlands Highway which is the main land transport corridor from the Highlands region to the coast...
on July 2, 1937, and headed for Howland Island
Howland Island
Howland Island is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States. Geographically, it is part...
, a tiny sliver of land in the Pacific Ocean, barely 2,000 meters long, with only one runway and a temporary refueling station. Their plan for the 18-hour-long flight was to reach the vicinity of Howland using Noonan's celestial navigation abilities and then find Howland by using radio signals transmitted by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Itasca
USCGC Itasca (1929)
The USCGC Itasca was a of the United States Coast Guard launched on 16 November 1929 and commissioned 12 July 1930. Itasca performed Bering Sea patrols; but is most remembered as the "picket ship" that would provide air navigation and radio links for Amelia Earhart when she made her 1937...
.
Through a combined sequence of misunderstandings or mishaps (that are still controversial), over scattered clouds, the final approach to Howland Island failed, although Earhart stated by radio that they believed they were in the immediate vicinity of Howland. Two-way radio contact was never established, and the aviators and their aircraft disappeared somewhere over the Central Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
. Despite an unprecedented, extensive search by the U.S. Navy — including the use of search planes from an aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
— and the U.S. Coast Guard, no traces of them or their Electra were ever found.
Later research showed that Howland's position was misplaced on their chart by approximately five nautical miles. There is also some motion picture evidence that a belly antenna on their Electra might have snapped on takeoff (the purpose of this antenna has not been identified, however radio communications seemed normal as they climbed away from Lae). One relatively new theory suggests that Noonan may have made a mistake in navigation due to the flight's crossing of the International Date Line
International Date Line
The International Date Line is a generally north-south imaginary line on the surface of the Earth, passing through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that designates the place where each calendar day begins...
.
Disappearance
It is possible, even likely, that having run out of fuel, Earhart ditched the Electra in the ocean where she perished with her navigator. However, in her last message received at Howland Island, Earhart reported that they were flying a standard line of position (or sun line), a routine procedure for an experienced navigator like Noonan. This line passed within sight of Gardner Island (now called NikumaroroNikumaroro
Nikumaroro, or Gardner Island, is part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, in the western Pacific Ocean. It is a remote, elongated, triangular coral atoll with profuse vegetation and a large central marine lagoon. Nikumaroro is approximately 6 km long by less than 2 km wide...
) in the Phoenix Island Group
Phoenix Islands
The Phoenix Islands are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs, lying in the central Pacific Ocean east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. They are a part of the Republic of Kiribati. During the late 1930s they became the site of the last attempted colonial...
to the southeast, and there is a range of documented, archaeological, and anecdotal evidence supporting the hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan found Gardner Island, uninhabited at the time, landed the Electra on a flat reef near the wreck of a freighter, and sent sporadic radio messages from there. In 1940, Gerald Gallagher
Gerald Gallagher
Gerald Bernard Gallagher is noted as the first officer-in-charge of the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme, the last colonial expansion of the British Empire.He was the son of Gerald and Edith Gallagher....
, a British colonial officer and a licensed pilot, radioed his superiors to tell them that he believed he had found Earhart's skeleton, along with a sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner. In a 1998 report to the American Anthroplogical Association, researchers, including a forensic anthropologist and an archaeologist, concluded, "What we can be certain of is that bones were found on the island in 1939–40, associated with what were observed to be women’s shoes and a navigator’s sextant box, and that the morphology of the recovered bones, insofar as we can tell by applying contemporary forensic methods to measurements taken at the time, appears consistent with a female of Earhart’s height and ethnic origin. "
Contradictory research has recently been advanced; it is possible to set course for and see Gardner from a point on the over Howland sunline (passing seven mls east of), but one does not reach Gardner by following such line. A position line is part of a circle circumference and may be considered a straight line, only for limited distances. The Sun´s azimuth change per hour is about 15 arcdegrees, whereas the Howland-to-Gardner flight (409 st.mls) would have taken 2 hours 55 minutes (@ 140 mph). As a result the aircraft, when having followed the LOP by astro, would have passed far northwards of Gardner when reaching its meridian. The "Gardner" hypothesis origins from a 1980s book, where navigator Paul Rafford, Jr. "fell off his chair when seeing that the position line points in the direction of Gardner Island". Apart from such supposition, it was with the available fuel reserves (45 gals) impossible to reach Gardner from the Howland region: the route would have taken 120 US gallons at least. Recent research has indicated that on July 2, 1937, Earhart´s aircraft was not (contrary to current literature) flown over the great circle New Guinea-to-Howland.
Popular culture
Although Fred Noonan has left a much smaller splash in popular culture than Amelia Earhart's, his legacy is remembered now and then. Noonan is often mentioned in W.P. Kinsella's novels. Noonan was portrayed by actor David GrafDavid Graf
Paul David Graf was an American actor, best known for his role as Sgt. Eugene Tackleberry in the Police Academy series of films...
in "The 37s", an episode of Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
. The character of an aircraft pilot named Fred Noonan is portrayed by actor Eddie Firestone in "The Long Train", a 1961 episode of the television series The Untouchables
The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a...
. Both a baseball stadium and an aircraft rental agency are named after Fred Noonan. A 1990 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries," still playing on cable, featured Mark Stitham as Noonan. In addition, Rutger Hauer has portrayed Noonan in the TV movie Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (1994) starring Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970...
, and Christopher Eccleston
Christopher Eccleston
Christopher Eccleston is an English stage, film and television actor. His films include Let Him Have It, Shallow Grave, Elizabeth, 28 Days Later, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Others, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra...
has portrayed Noonan in the recent biographical movie Amelia
Amelia (film)
Amelia is a 2009 English-language biographical film of the life of Amelia Earhart, starring Hilary Swank as Earhart along with a cast that includes Richard Gere, Christopher Eccleston and Ewan McGregor. It is directed by Mira Nair based on a script initially written by Ronald Bass...
(2009).
Fred Noonan is also mentioned in the song "Amelia" on Bell X1's 2009 album Blue Lights on the Runway
Blue Lights on the Runway
Blue Lights On The Runway is the fourth studio album by Irish band Bell X1. It was released in Ireland on 20 February 2009, and on March 3, 2009, in North America...
, which contemplates the last moments and the fates of Amelia Earhart and Noonan.