Mike Harris on Mili with Pix of his team

Here's the same report, but with photographs of Mike and the team, including Les Kinney, federal investigator with 27 years of AE research, Jim Hayton, forensic aviation expert who has testified before Congress and the NTSB, Dick Spink, school teacher extraordinaire who found the original pieces of the Electra, folks from Parker Aerospace, Jared Abrahams survey expert, Jerry Kramer former business partner of the Marshall's native who treated Earhart aboard a Japanese ship after recovering her plane, and Jerry's son...  not in that order...

American group looks for Amelia Earhart clues on remote Marshalls’ atoll

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Category: Palau/Pacific News

26 Jan 2015

By Giff Johnson - For Variety

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MAJURO — A group that claims it discovered parts from Amelia Earhart’s plane on a remote atoll in the Marshall Islands last year returned this weekend to search for additional clues they hope will shed light on a mystery that has baffled the world since the famous pilot was lost in 1937.

The whereabouts of Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed Electra that was lost during a trans-Pacific flight nearly 80 years ago has never been discovered. A group known as Amelia Research, Inc. led visits to Mili Atoll last year that discovered a small aluminum cover plate and a circular metal dust cover from a landing-gear wheel assembly that experts say is from Earhart’s plane.

But The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery or TIGHAR has a competing theory, saying it has found proof that Earhart went down at Nikumaroro Atoll in the central Pacific nation of Kiribati that neighbors the Marshall Islands. TIGHAR leader Ric Gillespie plans to take another team to Nikumaroro — about 400 miles southeast of Howland Island — later this year.

Others also discount the find in the Marshall Islands, saying Earhart’s plane didn’t have enough fuel to get there. But two aircraft experts recently said the plane parts found on Mili Atoll are from Earhart’s plane. Mili was a Japanese military base in the build up to World War II, one of half a dozen throughout the Marshall Islands.

MARSHALL ISLANDS PRESIDENT CHRISTOPHER LOEAK, CENTER, RECEIVING A GIFT FROM AMELIA RESEARCH INC. TEAM LEADER MIKE HARRIS, MET WITH THE SEARCH GROUP THAT IS ON REMOTE MILI ATOLL FOR A WEEK TO SEARCH FOR MORE CLUES ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF EARHART’S PLANE. MARSHALL ISLANDS PRESIDENT’S OFFICE PHOTO

Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak also believes Earhart’s plane crash-landed in Mili. “Generations of Marshallese people have known since 1937 that the famous fliers didn’t just disappear in the ocean, as history would want us to believe,” Loeak said in a statement issued after meeting the Earhart search group Friday. Marshall Islanders know that the plane landed “on a small atoll in the Marshall Islands and (Earhart and Noonan) survived.”

Loeak invited the team to visit Mili and has assigned government Historic Preservation Office staff to assist the investigation.

Cleveland, Ohio-based Parker Aerospace is sponsoring the latest Earhart search foray to Mili Atoll. The group left Sunday morning for Mili and expects to be there for about a week.

“We brought more sophisticated equipment to find other parts (of Earhart’s plane),” said Jon Jeffery, director of Technology and Business Development at Parker Aerospace. He hopes they will discover a part with a serial number or others that will offer conclusive evidence it was Earhart’s aircraft that landed in Mili.

MEMBERS OF THE AMELIA EARHART SEARCH TEAM BOARD A SPEED BOAT TO TRANSPORT THEM TO A LARGER VESSEL FOR AN OVERNIGHT VOYAGE FROM MAJURO TO MILI ATOLL IN THE MARSHALL ISLANDS THIS PAST WEEKEND. PHOTO BY HILARY HOSIA

A new wrinkle in the search for Earhart evidence in the Marshall Islands involves nearby Jaluit Atoll, the headquarters for Japan’s administration of the Marshall Islands from World War I to the end of World War II.

“There is an underground hospital built by the Japanese on Jaluit,” Jeffery said. Elder Marshall Islands say they saw Earhart’s plane go down on a small island in Mili Atoll, and others report seeing her in Jaluit. “Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were in this hospital after they crashed,” he said. “There might be some evidence there.”

Jeffery said his brother James is friends with people in the group searching Mili Atoll for clues to Earhart’s disappearance and last year approached Jeffery about his company sponsoring the latest visit.

“My CEO approved the money to sponsor the visit,” he said.

Expedition to Mili hits the airwaves

The first "official" report.  Note, this is Mike Harris' expedition - he found the sponsor, assembled the team, is shooting the footage.  They're out there during a "King Tide" so hopefully waters have receded to help their search. But if you read the other posts below, you'll find why Mike is on Mili with this team.

Search for Earhart plane on remote Marshalls atoll

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US aviator Amelia Earhart pictured in front of her plane in the 1930s (AFP Photo/)

A search is under way on a remote atoll in the Marshall Islands aimed at solving the mysterious disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.

A group of researchers travelled Sunday to Mili Atoll where a small aluminium cover plate and part of a landing-gear wheel assembly, believed to be from Earhart's plane, were found last year.

"We brought more sophisticated equipment to find other parts," said Jon Jeffery, director of technology and business development at United States-based Parker Aerospace, which is sponsoring the search.

Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, disappeared in 1937 with navigator Fred Noonan when attempting to circumnavigate the world in a twin-engine Lockheed Electra aircraft.

Marshall Islanders have long claimed Earhart crashed on an atoll and a group known as Amelia Research, Inc. found the aircraft parts last year.

"Generations of Marshallese people have known since 1937 that the famous fliers didn't just disappear in the ocean," Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak said.

The aircraft landed "on a small atoll in the Marshall Islands and (Earhart and Noonan) survived", he added.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has dismissed the Marshalls theory. It believes Earhart went down at Nikumaroro Atoll in the central Pacific nation of Kiribati near the Marshall Islands.

A new line of investigation in the search for Earhart evidence in the Marshall Islands involves Jaluit Atoll near Mili. It was the headquarters for Japan's administration of the Marshall Islands from World War I to the end of World War II.

"There is an underground hospital built by the Japanese on Jaluit," Jeffery said.

"Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were in this hospital after they crashed," he said. "There might be some evidence there."

Marshall Islanders have claimed they saw Earhart's plane go down on a small island in Mili Atoll, and others reported seeing her in Jaluit.

New Expedition to Mili Atoll

A new expedition has been launched for an official visit to Mili Atoll.

When the tide is out "a 747 could land here" said one expert.

Sponsored by Parker Hannifin Aerospace Company, which had airplane parts on the original Electra, this expedition will gather new evidence as to whether or not Amelia Earhart's Electra came down on Mili.

Courtesy Purdue University

For those not familiar with the story....

Mike Harris visited the Marshall Islands in the 1980's while investigating the Earhart saga.  While he was there, he gathered accounts from a number of eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen her and Fred Noonan after the Electra came down.

Dick Spink, Jim Hayton, Rich Martini and Mike Harris

Bilimon Amaron said that he treated her wounds aboard a Japanese ship, and that he saw the Electra on the back of that ship.

Amaron being interviewed by Harris in the 1980s. From Harris' footage shot in 1980.

Oscar DeBrum, former recording secretary of the Marshalls said his father told him that an American pilot had been captured and he saw the Electra on the back of this ship as well.

Oscar DeBrum saw the plane on the Japanese ship. From Harris' interview in 1980.

Andrew Bryce, WWII veteran said that he was stationed on Majuro, Marshall Islands during the war and that a stevedore had told him that he had transported the Electra aboard a Japanese barge to a Japanese ship from Mili. (Andrew's brother Douglas saw the Electra on Saipan, but that's another part of the story.)

Andrew Bryce from "Earhart's Electra" spoke to a man who transported the Electra. 

Oliver Knaggs went to the Marshalls in the 1980's with a film crew and filmed islanders, including the Queen of Mili, who claimed they saw Earhart's Electra land at Mili.  Other islanders said they had heard the stories, and knew where the plane came down.

Lotan Jack and others were told to keep quiet about the female pilot/American spy the Japanese captured.
From Mike Harris' 16mm footage shot in the 1980s.

Dick Spink, a school teacher from Seattle, who works frequently in the Marshall Islands, helped organize a trip to the exact spot where the islanders said they saw her plane came down.  And as reported here and in other newspapers, the pieces that he brought back from Mili have been identified - "beyond a reasonable doubt" by NTSB forensic aviation expert Jim Hayton (who has testified before Congress) that they are likely from her Electra.

APU cover with paint that resembles the trim from the Electra. Courtesy Dick Spink.

Specifically, there are two parts. An APU cover that was painted with the same kind of red trim that the Electra was painted with for easy identification (and Hayton has looked at it under a microscope and verified the primer was of that era) and a dust shield that went in the brake assembly of only an Electra 10E.  

That dust shield is listed in the Electra's manual, and is pictured belonging between the brake and the Good Year air wheel.

Jim Hayton demonstrating how the piece fit on his Good Year air wheel, which is identical the the one on the Electra.

Aviation expert Hayton owns one of those air wheels, and has demonstrated that it fits on the same air wheel that was on her plane. In his professional opinion, the dust shield could only have come from her Electra.

So Mike Harris, intrepid explorer, the man who hired Bob Ballard to help him look for the Titanic (and Ballard went back to the location with a new team where they had searched before, and actually found the ship) has mounted a new expedition to Mili Atoll, bringing along a team of experts.

These were used to transport the Electra to the barge, according to locals. They're the same gauge as other Japanese rail cars used for sugar cane transport on Saipan and other islands. Photo courtesy Dick Spink.

Mike is leading the following team:

Jared Abraham does surveys for the US Geological Survey Department using ground penetrating radar. (He was found by pilot Paul Cooper during our Saipan expedition).  Les Kinney is a retired Federal agent who has 27 years of hard evidence that he's gathered about the government's knowledge of her disappearance, and is writing a book about his research,  Jim Hayton is an expert in forensic aviation, called to many crash sites in the Pacific Northwest where he lives, and is friends with Dick Spink, the school teacher who has made four trips to this exact location on this atoll. The team is traveling with Martin Daly, who runs tours from these islands, as well as the son of Jerry Kramer, who was Bilimon Amaron's business partner for 40 years, and has vouched for Bilimon's "unassailable honesty." Also some folks from Parker Hannifin Aerospace Industries are on the trip as well.

Circumstances prevented yours truly from accompanying them on this epic leg of the Earhart saga, but I'm rooting for them from cyberspace.

They're going to be searching for more pieces of the Electra, as there have been eyewitness accounts of more pieces of the plane, as well as eyewitness testimony of people who are related to those who saw her plane come down. 

For those concerned these might be airplane parts from "other Electras" or other airplanes - there were no recorded battles fought over these particular islands during WWII, and no other artifacts have been found from any other planes, despite four expeditions led by Dick Spink. The location of these pieces dovetails with the evidence, both local eyewitnesses and other evidence that will prove beyond a shadow of any doubt that she came down in Mili atoll in 1937.  

The rest of the story will be told soon enough, but for now, where she came down will have to be rewritten by those who care about the historical record.  Theoretical models exist of how and why the Electra should not have been able to make this same island chain where Louis Zamperini washed up ("Unbroken") after 47 days at sea (In Wotje), but theoretical models should not trump physical evidence that is backed up by eyewitness accounts.  

The fact is that it appears now that Amelia flew the Electra all the way to Mili, and landed it on a runway of rough coral. When the tide is low, one eyewitness said "You could land a 747 on this atoll." It would have been low tide when her Electra arrived, when a number of islanders saw her bring the metal plane to the ground.  Her amazing flying feat saved her life and that of her navigator Fred Noonan by making it this far, and the evidence will eventually prove what the rest of their journey was, as difficult as the evidence shows it to be.

So there now exists physical evidence of her amazing feat of skill, and exactly where her plane came down. Knock on wood, these explorers will bring back more.

Lest we forget why we're doing this research. To honor the sacrifice of these two explorers; Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart. Courtesy Purdue University

Thanks to Parker Hannifin Corporation, Aerospace Industries, who not only had original plane parts in the Electra, but their generous sponsorship for this expedition which may actually locate exactly where the Electra came down and provide more evidence for the solution of the Earhart puzzle.

Stay tuned.