“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.
I did a little research on the island they supposedly landed on. It was uninhabited at the time, but there had been a coconut plantation there in the last year or two with around a hundred people. The empty village would still have been there, with plenty of items lying around that would have been helpful in surviving. Also, there was the hulk of a wrecked freighter just offshore on the coral reef. They would have seen both these landmarks from the air.
Assuming the skeleton is Earhart’s the evidence is that she, at least, was able to get ashore and make some attempts at survival—the fire ring, improvising with the pocketknife. Why, then, did she stay in one place? It’s a small island, it would have been only a mile or two to the village, where they would have found shelter, tools to help them survive, and (as far as they knew) people. If she was able to get off the plane and swim ashore, she should have been able to make it to the other end of the island, even if injured.
And where was Noonan? Did he go down with the plane? Did he wander off somewhere else? Did he try to swim out to the wrecked freighter and get swept away by the current?
I’d like to believe they mystery is solved, but this was not a completely barren island. There were items there they could have taken advantage of. It just seems that they should have left more traces of themselves. A note, something.