As DWalt says the only new info is the picture. The eye witness accounts have been around for a while and its hard to prove or disprove them. My biggest problem is that Noonan was supposed to be one of the best navigators in the country if not the world. He plotted the courses for the china clipper aircraft that spanned the pacific in the '30's. I can't quite believe he could be that off in not allowing for the cross wind as they claim. Thats what dead reconing is about. I do think the Japanese had them along with the hawaii clipper that vanished about a year later on a flight across the pacific. Given the military and political stuff going on at the time it makes sense the US wouldn't want to disclose it broke the Japanese codes.
Several thoughts....
1. Fred Noonan's real strength as a navigator was in celestial navigation and in particular celestial navigation from an aircraft which is a bit more difficult as you're moving a significant distance in the time it takes to shoot at least 3 stars, and where it can be a lot harder to get accurate readings on a sextant given the livelier motion of an aircraft, in pitch, roll, and yaw.
2. Dead reckoning navigation is only as accurate as the assumptions that you make. The leg from Lae to Howland island was 2,220 nautical miles and in no wind conditions at their 130 kt (150 mph) would take 17.1 hours under no wind conditions (not counting some added time for climb to 10,000 ft at lower airspeed).
The flight was timed for an arrival in the morning about 15 minutes after sun up. However, that meant much of the 2,220 nautical miles, and flight was completed in darkness. As a result their last reliable fix and position report put them 793 nm from Lae on a slight dogleg course that made the minimum distance to Lae from that point 1,485 nm. It also worked out to an average ground speed of 109 kts.
Overcast conditions prevented celestial navigation fixes, and the radio direction finding equipment had some significant issues - including very limited training on the equipment.
Earhart reported that she should be at Lae at 1912 Zulu, and thus it appears she and Noonan assumed a 119 kt ground speed. However they relied on forecast winds that were east - north east for the most of the flight to Howland. Consequently Noonan was expecting winds from roughly 67 degrees, when they were in fact from the east. This meant they were flying at around 130 kts IAS (economy cruise speed after step climbing to 10,000 ft), with an assumed ground speed of 119 kts for 1,485 nm (approx 12.5 hours). That estimated arrival at Howland suggests he assumed winds from 67 degrees at about 12 kts (consistent with the 15 mph forecast), with a 14 degree drift to the right, indicating he needed to fly a heading of 69 degrees, to track on 083 degrees to Howland.
However, they had a 23 degree error in their assumed winds and they were stronger than predicted - from 90 degrees at 24 mph at Nauru, and east at 22 kts (25 mph) at Howland Island. In that case, they were actually flying 18 degrees left of course. Over 1,485 nm that's a 480 nm error, putting them slightly west of Howland and well to the north of Howland.
3. One of the contentions made in the program last night is that no pilot with any sense is going to make a fight like that without an alternate - especially given the imprecise weather forecasts of the period. That's supported by correspondence with Kelly Johnson suggesting that she hold a 190 gallon reserve (enough for 5 hours flight at her expected 38 gph fuel burn At 130 kts IAS and with the actual winds, she would have a 154 kt ground speed flying west - enough to cover 770 nm, or 650 nm, plus a solid half hour reserve to land or ditch. In her original plan, that was more than enough fuel to fly west to the Gilbert islands which ran across her course for 400 miles making them very hard to miss. As alternates go, it's a pretty good one and beats swimming.
However, since she was both slightly farther west than planned and 480 nautical miles north, she was similarly positioned to unknowingly fly west to the Mashall islands, and Milli Atoll is right where she'd be expected to make landfall in the Marshall islands.
4. This 400 miles off course theory is also supported by her radio contacts where she retorted cloud cover, when the only cloud cover in the region was 400 miles north of Howland.
5. When you consider that a plane with a white man and woman crash landing on Milli Atoll has been part of the oral history there since the late 1930's, and no US aircraft is known to have crashed there in WWII, it's pretty compelling evidence. It's bolstered by the finding a piece of aircraft wreckage on Milli that closely matches a section of the nacelle of a Model 10, that would have readily been torn off on landing or in recovery of the aircraft.
6. Then you add in a photo at Jaluit Atoll with people who very closely match Earhart and Noonan - at a time when caucasians were not allowed in the Marshall islands by the Japanese, (other than a very few missionaries), it makes for a very compelling case.
7. When you also consider the same picture has a barge with an aircraft on it that matches the length of the Lockheed Model 10, behind a ship that matches the ship reported to have picked up the white fliers at Milli Atoll, the theory has even more substance.
8. Then you have a couple eye witnesses on Saipan who reported the same ship with the same barge and aircraft at Saipan, and numerous eye witnesses who reported a woman matching Earhart's description on Saipan, and a witness who reports Earhart and Noonan were executed on Saipan. It starts to become a theory that is pretty hard to ignore. These were by the way, the witness Fred Goerner interviewed in the early 1960s - not much more than 20 years after the fact, and at a time when the witnesses didn't even know ho Earhart was or that she was famous.
9. The suspicion that two marines showed up just after the invasion of Saipan by the US to recover the remains of two white people is less definitive. It could have been anyone. But if it was Earhart and Noonan, then it's pretty damning evidence that the US government knew they were held prisoner there. The question then would be when they first knew it.
10. You also have the fact that the US Navy first launched a massive search, and then rather abruptly cut it short 13 days after the last reported contact with Earhart, despite some concerns that the search efforts were flawed, and that Earhart could have made landfall in the Marshall, Phoenix or Gilbert islands and may have still bene alive. One of the reasons the US Navy would do that would be if the US Navy intercepted Japanese radio traffic that indicated Earhart and Noonan had been captured. Naval Intelligence at the time was reading Japanese codes, but or course the US couldn't approach the Japanese and say "hey, we read your radio traffic, and we want them back." In that case, you give the appearance of a good effort, and then pack it in and go home.
