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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, December 6, 2010 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

photo of Ric Gillespie

Ric Gillespie

" Finding Amelia - Where? How? .....and Why?"

ABSTRACT -- Solving the riddle of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart is simple - figure out where to look and then use the best available technology to carry out a search. The U.S. Navy was the first to try in 1937 and in the ensuing seventy-three years there have been numerous further attempts, yet the fate of America's favorite missing person remains a mystery. In his presentation, historian and author Ric Gillespie will review the where and the how of those searches, including the nine expeditions to the South Pacific he has led as the executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR). For the past 22 years TIGHAR has been testing the hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan ended their days as castaways on a remote uninhabited waterless atoll known then as Gardner Island and today as Nikumaroro. Ric will explain why Nikumaroro is where to search for Earhart and describe TIGHAR's successes - and failures - using 21st century technology to solve a 20th century riddle under 19th century conditions. He'll also address the question of why. The answer may surprise you.

SPEAKER -- In 1985, Ric Gillespie left a career as an aviation risk manager and accident investigator to found The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR, pronounced tiger). The nonprofit foundation conducts historical investigations and promotes responsible aviation archaeology and historic preservation. As TIGHAR's executive director, Ric has conducted dozens of educational seminars around the U.S. and has organized and moderated conferences of air museum professionals in Britain and Europe. He has led over three dozen aviation archaeological expeditions to remote areas of the U.S., Canada, Europe, Micronesia and New Guinea. The author of Finding Amelia - the true story of the Earhart disappearance (Naval Institute Press, 2006) Gillespie is widely recognized as a leading authority on that iconic mystery. TIGHAR's quest for the solution to the Earhart mystery will be the subject of a two-hour Discovery Channel special.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov