Get your entryin now.
It seems more like a prove your theory right game than a find out what happened effort.
There was a lot of fighting around Papua New Guinea, and there were several military aircraft that used the P&W R-985. If the guy found one, my bet is that it’s from a military aircraft.
Fred Noonan was a pretty good navigator. He charted some routes for Pan Am. If he thought they were somewhere near Howland Island, the wreckage is probably nearer Nikumaroro than Papua New Guinea.
There is the alleged serial number.
Pieces of a Lockheed at the bottom of the sea is pretty good evidence.
Is Nikumaroro or Papua New Guinea closer to Howland?
Seems strange that they would turn around.
I presume that navigating at that time was with a sextant. The B-25 had small windows for the navigator to take star shots.
Nikumaroro is a lot closer, and it’s on the last known line that she was flying. Estimating on Google maps, it’s about 400 miles south-south-east of Howland, while New Britain looks close to 2,000 miles going straight back from where they’d come. The plane was already low on fuel in the vicinity of Howland Island, so finding it in New Britain is extremely improbable.
The more I read about this, the more it looks like the death of a thousand blows. There was a succession of mistakes and errors by everyone involved, any one of which, if avoided, might have averted this tragedy. Makes for a great mystery, though.
That Gillespie guy seems to bob up every year with a new find. Maybe he needs more funding at the time.
This is usually the case in airplane crashes.