Level 1 Reading 12B

Ch.24 Reading 12B

THE MISSING PILOT On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan left Lae, New Guinea, for Howland Island in the Pacific. This was without a doubt the longest and most dangerous part of their trip around the world. Earhart had trouble shortly after takeoff. The weather was stormy, so she had to fly at approximately 3,000 meters. Going this high, the plane used up gas quickly. After about 20 hours, Earhart and Noonan approached Howland Island. The island was only about a hundred kilometers away at this point, but the bright sun was shining in their faces, so they couldn't see it. Near Howland, a ship—the Itasca—was waiting. Earhart contacted the ship:"Gas is low," she said. The Itasca tried to maintain contact with her, but it got no response. Finally, the Itasca called for help. People searched for Earhart and Noonan for days. Despite great efforts, they found nothing. Answers to a Mystery? What happened to Amelia Earhart? No one knows for sure. During the flight, she likely headed in the wrong direction because the sun was bright and it was hard to see. Perhaps she and Noonan got lost somewhere over the Pacific; soon after, her plane ran out of gas, and she crashed into the sea. Another idea is that Earhart might have landed on a nearby, uninhabited island called Nikumaroro, where she later died. Researchers recently brought bone-sniffing dogs to the island, though, and no human bones were found. However, the dogs did detect the smell of bones that decomposed long ago— these bones could have been Earhart's. A more extreme theory is that Earhart flew the plane to the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands, a thousand kilometers to the north, and later secretly returned to the United States under a new name. The first theory seems most likely. However, none of these ideas has been proven. Today, people are still investigating Earhart's and Noonan's disappearance. Whatever happened, Earhart probably died as she wished. "When I go," she once said, "I'd like best to go in my plane."

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