She did fly the Atlantic solo in 1932, only the second person after Lindbergh to do so, and that was just one of the many long-distance-record flights she accomplished. This was to be her crowning achievement, another first in a long list of firsts. Noonan had been chosen to accompany her because he had served as a navigator on the Pan American Pacific Clipper so he was familiar with the region where they expected the most difficulty.
She had planned on starting from Hawaii and going west, but on takeoff from Luke Field, the tip of one wing of the fuel-laden plane clipped the runway, and the Electra was badly damaged. It was shipped back to the States, and Earhart decided to reverse the direction of the flight and the start point. On 1 June, they took off from Miami, Florida, and flew to Puerto Rico on the first stage. They’d flown along the northern edge of South America to Africa at the narrowest part of the South Atlantic, then across Africa, along the southern tip of Arabia, and across India. That latter stage was another first for Earhart; no one had ever flown nonstop from the Red Sea to India before. They’d then hopped down toward Australia from Karachi to Calcutta, then to Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore, and Bandoeng. There bad weather delayed them, and she came down with dysentery. Also during that time, Noonan had made repairs on the long-distance receivers and transmitters, which had been giving them trouble all through the long flight. On 27 June, they’d flown from Bandoeng to Darwin, where more repairs on the direction finder were completed, and their parachutes were shipped back to the States. Given that the rest of the trip would be over the Pacific, the parachutes were no longer needed.
They’d reached Lae, New Guinea, on 29 June, over two-thirds of the trip done and seven thousand miles to go. But the last legs were all over the Pacific, the most dangerous part of the journey. At Lae, she had cabled her last article to the Herald Tribune and her last journal entry to George.
“I need a fix,” Amelia said. “We’re getting close, and we’re not going to have fuel to turn around if we miss it on the first pass.”
“I know that.” Noonan’s voice was tight. They were both exhausted. “I don’t know why I can’t pick up the ship. The equipment is working correctly,” he added defensively.
There was a smudge on the ocean ahead. Earhart’s heart leapt as she though it must be smoke from the Itasca. She grabbed the transmitter and keyed it. “K-H-A-Q-Q calling Itasca. I see smoke. Are you making smoke? Over.”
There was no answer.
Noonan had a set of binoculars, and he put them to his eyes. “I don’t think that’s a ship’s smoke.”
“An island?” Earhart asked.
“It’s like fog.”
“It can’t be fog,” Earhart said. “It’s too small.”
“It’s getting bigger,” Noonan said.
Even without the glasses, Earhart could see that it was growing larger. There was a yellowish tinge to the fog, and it was billowing upward and out ward at an unnatural rate.
“I’m getting something,” Noonan said. He had his hands over his headset, listening intently.
Amelia’s gaze shifted between the compass and the growing cloud on the horizon as she waited.
“I don’t know what it is,” Noonan finally said. “A lot of static, then what sounds like Morse Code, but I can’t-” he fell silent once more as he focused on listening, his eyes closed. “It’s clearer now.” Noonan opened his eyes and picked up a pencil and began to record the letters in the flight log, speaking them out loud, as he heard the dashes and dots.
“T-U-R-N-O-F-F-R-A-D-I-O-O-R-D-I-E.”
“What?” Earhart was so tired her brain couldn’t make immediate sense of the letters.
“Turn off radio or die,” Noonan succinctly informed her.
“We can’t. We won’t be able to navigate.”
“Hell, we haven’t’ been navigating for hours, “ Noonan noted.
“Who’s sending?” Earhart was confused. If it wasn’t the Itasca, who was out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“I have no idea.”
The fog was now less than five miles ahead and was huge, blocking their path now at twelve thousand feet and continuing to climb. In all her flights, she had never seen anything like it. She had a feeling they shouldn’t fly into it, but if she changed course, she would burn fuel and get off their track to Howland Island. A startling thought crossed her mind: Had she already flown past Howland Island and the Itasca? She pushed that negative thinking aside. She knew exactly how fast they had been going and how long they had been in the air. But, she argued with herself, there was the possibility of a strong headwind or tailwind, multiplied by the nineteen hours they’d been in the air, skewing her math.
“I think we should shut the radio off,” Noonan suggested, drawing her back to the immediate problem. “I don’t like the looks of that.”
“Find out who’s sending,” Earhart ordered.
Noonan had a knee key on his thigh, and he tapped out a quick query in Morse, trying to get the identity of the sender of the message.
A golden beam slashed out of the fog directly for the Electra. Earhart reacted, pushing forward and dropping the nose of the plane. The gold beam missed them by less than ten feet.
“Stop transmitting!” she yelled as she pulled the plane out of the dive and banked hard left. The fog was now less than two miles away, a wall stretching as far as she could see north and south and reaching up at least fifteen thousand feet.
“What was that?” Noonan was flipping switches, cutting power to their transmitter and receivers.
Earhart noted the fuel gauges. Not much left, and she had no idea where they were. Glancing out the window, she noted that even though she was flying a parallel course, the fog was closer, which meant it was still expanding.
“I’m going to ditch,” she announced.
Noonan said nothing, knowing there really weren’t any other options. They had an inflatable raft on board, and it was best to go down while they still had engine power so she could have some control of the landing.
Earhart turned away from the strange fog and began descending. Fortunately, the water was relatively calm, the swell no more than half a foot. When they were ten feet above the waves, she began throttling back, slowing the plane to just above stall speed.
The Electra hit, bounced hit once more, and again bounced into the air. Then they were down, both slammed forward against their seat belts as the water slowed the plane. Earhart cut power to the engines, and an eerie silence reigned, strange after so many hours in the air, the sound of the engines their constant companion. Her first thought was that silence was the sound of failure: she had fallen short of her goal. She shook that thought out of her head and knew she had to focus on the immediate problem, which was getting out of the plane. She unbuckled, knowing they had some time before the plane went down, as the empty fuel tanks would keep it afloat for a little while. Earhart got up and began gathering essential equipment.
Noonan opened the door below the right wing, then went and got the raft. Earhart stuck her head out the door and looked to the rear. The fog was still coming, now less than a quarter mile away. Noonan began to inflate the raft after tying it off to a wing strut, while she piled supplies next to the door. She considered making a distress call, but the memory of what had happened the last time she’d transmitted stopped her. When they didn’t arrive, the Itasca would come looking for her. And she knew her husband would get the president to launch a search.
“I hope whoever warned us is nearby,” she told Noonan.