01/30/2024
The media push-back has started. National Geographic just published a Not So Fast article.
“The sound wave, because it’s so big, can’t see fine detail,” says David Jourdan, an engineer whose company Nauticos has led three expeditions in search of Earhart. “It can be distorted by reflections, like taking a picture of a mirror.” Promising images, on a second look, sometimes turn out to be something else entirely, like a geological formation. “The proportions aren’t quite right,” says Jourdan, pointing to the way the wings are swept back rather than straight across, as the Electra’s were.
Others are even more skeptical. “For the wings of an Electra to fold rearward as shown in the sonar image, the entire center section would have to fail at the wing/fuselage junctions,” according to an email blast from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), an organization that has put forward the theory that Earhart died a castaway on an island to the east of the sonar image site. “That’s just not possible.”
Romeo dismisses this criticism. Both the wings and the tail look swept back due to distortion caused by the AUV moving through the water, he says, pointing to the twin fins on the back of the plane instead. “That’s very distinctive of her aircraft,” he says. “There’s only a couple of planes that’ve ever been made like that.”
I don't see a twin tail, but dozens of aircraft types have twin fins on the tail. I've seen hundreds of sonar images taken by an AUV. The AUV's movement through the water does not cause distortion.
A new grainy sonar image claims to solve the mystery of the famed aviator’s disappearance, but experts say it’s too soon to tell. Here's what we do know.
