Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved [Hardcover]

Elgen M. Long (Author), Marie K. Long (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 1999

When Amelia Earhart disappeared on July 2, 1937, she was flying the longest leg of her around-the-world flight and was only days away from completing her journey. Her plane was never found, and for more than sixty years rumors have persisted about what happened to her.

Now, with the recent discovery of long-lost radio messages from Earhart's final flight, we can say with confidence that she ran out of gas just short of her destination of Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. From the beginning of her flight, a series of tragic circumstances all but doomed her and her navigator, Fred Noonan.

Authors Elgen M. and Marie K. Long spent more than twenty-five years researching the mystery surrounding Earhart's final flight before finally determining what happened. They traveled over one hundred thousand miles to interview more than one hundred people who knew some part of the Earhart story. They draw on authoritative sources to take us inside the cockpit of the Electra plane that Earhart flew and recreate the final flight itself. Because Elgen Long began his own flying career not long after Earhart's disappearance, he can describe the equipment and conditions of the time with a vivid first-hand accuracy. As a result, this book brings to life the primitive conditions under which Earhart flew, in an era before radar, with unreliable communications, grass landing strips, and poorly mapped islands.

"Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved" does more than just answer the question, What happened to Amelia Earhart? It reminds us how daring early aviators such as Earhart were as they risked their lives to push the technology of the day to its limits -- and beyond.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The mystery surrounding Amelia EarhartAwho disappeared in the Pacific along with her navigator while attempting to fly around the world in June 1937Ahas long haunted the popular imagination. Myth and investigative reporting have variously claimed that she became a housewife in suburban New Jersey or a spy for the Defense Department who was captured by the Japanese. In this new investigation, which draws upon 25 years of research and recently rediscovered logs of Earhart's last radio transmissions, the Longs claim to have solved the mystery of her disappearance. The information that they present is convincing but less than startlingAessentially, Earhart and her navigator, after hitting a lot of bad weather, ran out of gas. In this respect, the book will appeal only to die-hard Earhart fans. The "mystery" aside, the Longs' detailed look at Earhart's career and the history of early aviation affords a host of other pleasures, chief among them a nearly moment-by-moment description of the fatal flight itself. Communicating their love of flying and the sheer sense of adventure early flyers experienced, the Longs create a tense and at times hair-raising narrative out of the simple routines and extraordinary perils of piloting the primitive aircraft of the early 20th century. While their attention to detail may not grip casual readers who are uninterested in minute descriptions of the mechanics of early planes, the authors present a complete picture of Earhart's fate and offer a tribute to her bravery and risk taking. 4-city author tour; 20-city radio satellite tour. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A detailed chronicle of the last days of Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, and what went before, based upon an exhaustive 25-year study. Celebrated pilot Elgen Long and his coauthor wife, a public relations consultant with the Western Aerospace Museum, claim that the solution of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Electra, Earhart's plane, has never been found until now. The fatal flight began on July 2, 1937, during an era of ``firsts'' in the fast-developing technology of pioneer aviation. As speed and endurance records toppled around them, Earhart and Noonan took off on an around-the-world flight across the equator. Wiley Post had soloed around the world in a record seven days in 1933. Earhart's flight in a late model plane had been bankrolled and otherwise supported by her influential husband, G.P. Putnam of Putnam Publishers, many friends, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Navy, the Army Air Corps, and aviation experts. Every possible precaution seemed to have been taken for a successful flight. But as a newly discovered report reveals, while Earhart and Noonan were flying the leg from Lae, New Guinea, to remote Howland Island in the Pacific, a faulty direction finder, poor radio communications, and an inaccurate map of Howland led the Electra off course while the plane ran out of fuel. Earhart and expert navigator Noonan did not know the Morse code used by the military. Earhart's last voice transmission noted that she was running out of fuel. Debunking rumors that Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese, the Longs conclude that the plane, without any survival equipment aboard, must have ditched in the vast Pacific, miles from Howland. The empty fuel tanks would have filled up rapidly with sea water, causing the Electra to sink. The Longs' extensive research, coupled with their mastery of technical detail, should make this the definitive study of its subject. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (November 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684860058
• ISBN-13: 978-0684860053
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,284,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( E ) > Earhart, Amelia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crash or splash?, March 23, 2000

By 

David Cohen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved (Hardcover)

`The wing tips wobbled slightly, and suddenly the plane began veering to the left with increasing speed...it swung around and tilted with its right wing tip almost almost scraping the mat. The right landing gear suddenly collapsed, followed shortly by the left gear, and the plane slid on its belly. A shower of sparks spurted from the airplane...' Honolulu, March 1937, and Amelia Earhart's plane Electra has just crashed while attempting to take off on a test flight. The crash was bad news for the famous American woman aviator and her team: it meant they had to approach their financial backers for more funds to repair the plane if Earhart was to fly around the world. They got the money, of course, but worse was to come: Earhart and her navigator disappeared four months later on July 2, 1937, on the longest stretch of their epic trans-global flight. Since then what exactly happened to the Electra and its occupants has been a mystery. One of the stranger rumours have been that Earhart and her navigator were captured and spirited away by the Japanese, who had rather frosty relations with America in the days before Pearl Harbour and World War 2. But here the authors claim to solve the mystery: according to their reckoning, and backed up with a swag of maps, radio transmissions and estimates, they say the Electra simply ran out of fuel somewhere around their destination of Howland Island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The plane (and the remains of its occupants) are lying 17,000 feet below the water somewhere around the tiny island. The mystery, of course, is why did it happen? Long-distance flying was extremely dangerous in those days, but it wasn't complete guesswork: Earhart had the latest and best radio, planned her flights with great care and had support and encouragement from the highest levels. However, several factors - minor on their own - all contributed to the disaster that took place. The Electra's radio equipment was so new it didn't have an accompanying instruction manual. Navigator Fred Noonan was relying on a map which showed Howland Island six miles west of where it really was. The wind was slightly stronger than Earhart thought it was, thus pushing her further away from the right direction. There was a US Navy vessel near the island, but radio contact between it and Earhart was sporadic, and they never saw each other. The book is very detailed, and contains a lot of technical information. There is much talk about mile radius, azimuth and radio frequencies. The authors do a sterling job of explaining the technical stuff where necessary while narrating an exciting tale. One of the later chapters examines the `area of uncertainty' the Electra had to grapple with on its last flight: the agonising calculations that Noonan would have performed in an effort to determine where the Electra was, and where Howland Island was. The Electra is still at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. Despite the careful research, the mystery of Earhart's last flight won't fully be solved until the plane is found - as with our own Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his Lady Southern Cross. `Is the emergency equipment still there? Are there any signs of remains? There are dozens of questions that can be answered only be recovering the plane,' the authors conclude.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally a sane Earhart book, December 23, 1999

By 

Jeffrey F. Bell (Honolulu, HI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved (Hardcover)

After so many bizzare conspiracy theories, it was a pleasure to read a completely sane book on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The authors have done a huge amount of original research, reconstructing Earhart's last flight in excruciating (sometimes tedious) detail. Their new information on the poor human engineering of the Electra's radio gear fills in the last gap in our understanding of why Earhart didn't find Howland Island. The Long's analysis of where the Electra splashed due to fuel exhaustion is somewhat more speculative than the earlier part of the book due to the few details available on Fred Noonan's navigation methods, but it is still the best analysis published to date. I do wish that the book had been better edited.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sensible answer at last, February 13, 2001

By 

Harry Pandolfino (York, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved (Hardcover)

Very reminiscent of Gerald Posner's 'Case Closed' this book shows that an apparently unanswerable question can be answered if informed knowledge is brought to bear with clear logic and meticulous research. A fascinating and 'factual' analysis of the doomed aviatrix' last mission and a plausible explanation for the end. The Longs have written what must be considered the 'definitive' book on this undying mystery.