March 24, 2012

The Most Wonderful Thing About TIGHAR

Last year I wrote about a guy called Ric Gillespie who is the Executive Director of a company known as TIGHAR, pronounced tiger by the way, not the same way as Winnie the Pooh's mate. Anyway, TIGHAR stands for The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery so it's not hard to guess what they do.

Just in case you are having an off day, TIGHAR look for old, lost aircraft.

Amelia Earhart fascinates me, not in a creepy way, but more of a not letting things get in the way of what you want to do type way. In short Amelia Earhart kicked ass. Seriously, this woman was not held back by, well, being a woman in the early 1900's. She was a pilot, truck driver, navigator, writer (including an editor for Cosmopolitan), started her own airline and spent some time as a photographer.

Which to be fair, is pretty impressive in today's world, but even more so then, considering women only got to vote in the US in 1920.

Anyhow, in 1937, Amelia Earhart disappeared when her Electra aircraft vanished. Yup, that's right, it just vanished. No one really knows what happened to Amelia and her co-pilot Fred Noonan. Of course, with any sudden death/disappearance/mystery there are absolute pages of different conspiracy theories from alien abduction to being a spy.

So, why after so many expeditions, (at least 10) are TIGHAR going back, yet again to Nikumaroro?

Especially when the the bones fragments that were tested by forensic pathologists last year, we're found to be inconclusive, that is, they couldn't prove if it was human or not.

I appreciate that science is constantly moving forward and advances in DNA testing might be able to prove or disprove something in 10 years time that today we just don't know. Is it not time that someone had a word in the ear of Ric Gillespie and tell him that the chances of finding this aircraft & possibly Amelia and Fred's resting place is ever decreasing? Let's face it, this July it will be 75 years since all 3 of them (I'm including the plane in that) went AWOL in the world.

Some people, including Susan Butler, author of 'East to Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart' reckon that TIGHAR are looking in the wrong place altogether and that they really should consider moving their efforts to Howland Island instead.

What raised my interest in this was, if no concrete evidence for anything has been found, why has this story even made the news? I mean it's interesting and everything, but the couple were declared dead the same year that world war 2 started.

Surely, we should celebrate the life of the brilliantly brave and envelope pushing heroine that was Amelia Earhart not be looking for the remains of a woman who may have died from dysentery.

It was none other than US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who expressed interest in the expedition saying, “Even if you do not find what you seek, there is great honor and possibility in the search itself,” Clinton told the explorers Tuesday. “So, like our lost heroine, you will all carry our hopes.”

Jeez, Hillary the next time you speak to Ric, can you not suggest to him to look in a different place?