I read a very detailed book about the entire flight. And the many flights leading up to it. Heavily documented. They were to be guided into Howland Island using both a voice radio as a beacon and a morse-code type beacon. (It’s been awhile since I read the book - but it was something like that).
Earhart had two different receivers for the signals that she would switch between. And she was to search for one on the hour and half-hour, and the other on the quarter hours.
The book had documentation for a variety of items where things may have gone wrong. There may have been some confusion on the labels on her switch. Fog, sunlight in her eyes, etc. There was a problem with the island’s radio transmitter so they used a Navy ship achored off the island.
Seems the island had one time, and the Navy ship was running on Hawaii time - something like 1 1/4 hours different. It is the 1/4 that messed things up. They were transmitting the wrong signal when Earhart would have been listening for the other type!
One of the things that came about from the gov’t investigation of Earhart’s missing was creating Greenwich Mean Time as a standard.
“Tighar’s” theory has been that Earhart’s navigator, Fred Noonan, realizing that they had overshot their destination, had her turn in a southerly direction, hoping to come across a group of islands. It is important to realize that these islands are on the Equator with daytime highs of 120 degrees and no water unless it rains. Gilligan’s island, this ain’t!
They believe that the aircraft crash-landed on the reef, then carried off into deeper water by wave action and that Earhart and Noonan perished of thirst on the island.
Surprised to learn she had a 'fling' with Gore Vidal's father...(if true)