Earhart mystery

PIM helps with Earhart mystery

In the January issue, we asked Pacific Islands Monthly readers to help with one of the lesser mysteries regarding the disappearance of Amelia Earhart over the mid-Pacific 60 years ago. (See “Help Solve the Earhart Mystery”.) Rick Gillespie, head of a joint American-I-Kiribati wreck investigation team, asked us if anyone knew whether odd bits of aviation aluminum - like some found on Nikumaroro - were ever used by Kiribati residents in cooking.

If that’s the case, it would explain the medium level of heat dmage found on a

chunk of pre-World-War-II aviation alu minum located on that island. United States scientists told Gillespie that the alumiunum had been exposed to some heat - more than that of the tropical sun, but less than the high heat usually involved in aircraft fires.

Two PIM readers called. The Tarawa caller, Joe Russell, an American who has lived in Kiribati for about 25 years, said that his in-laws knew of the use of bits of aluminum as a substitute for a frying pan over an open fire, and that fish cooked in this way is called tin tin. (He even faxed us a diagram of the operation.) The Sydney caller, Rob Bochman, whose relatives had once lived in Kiribati and have since moved to the Solomons, was also helpful. Gillespie’s team is on Nikumaroro, for its fourth visit, as this is

written.

By David North