"I fail to understand the Earhart obsession: She’s dead, Jim...." She was never a particularly good pilot but she married rich, which had two profound impacts on her life. No. 1, her rich husband gave her enough money to buy what is referred to in aviation circles as "too much airplane." And No. 2, her rich publisher husband crafted her public image when she was alive, and when her obsession with flying was the death of her, he spent every penny required to craft her legacy.
Earhart's Electra the after she ground-looped it attempting a take-off from Luke Field, Pearl Harbor before dawn on 20 March 1937.
So ended her first around-the-world flight attempt. Rich husband paid for the repairs and she began her second attempt on the 1st of June.
Not that flying mishaps weren't commonplace in that era.
Some days, even Lindy wasn't very lucky.
Airplanes still were new and people were learning how to fly while minimizing the risks. But even for that era her mishaps were a litle more numerous than others, and under sketchier circumstances, all of which are the earmarks of an aviatrix whose ego and ambitions are growing faster than her skill sets.
In the end, she died because she didn't understand the employment and limitations of her radio equipment, and didn't turn back soon enough to save her life.
I forget the name of the book, but it had lots of references and information about her earlier flights and this one. In the FR article it talks about her communicating with the ship. The plan was to communicate with the much stronger radio on shore, but the on-shore generator was out, so they used the ship as back up. The book talked a lot about the various time zones the plane, ship and island were using. I think the island was still sending out morse code every 15 minutes, and Earhart was to listen for the morse code at the alloted time, and then radio at the alloted time. But there may have been confusion caused by the various time zones.
Also something to do with the switch on the radio that changed it from morse to radio was somehow easily put in the wrong position? I need to find and read that book again.
They estimate that she would have been pretty close to the longitude of where she was to land as that could be calculated using the time and speed of the airplane. But then she would have ranged north and south to get close, either using the radio signal strength, morse code strength, or of course a visual sighting.
Yes she is dead and gone, but it is still a “mystery” and is sort of a treasure hunt. Who doesn’t love a treasure hunt!?