It seems that TIGHAR has snagged a new partner in its decades-long search for Nungesser and Coli, the two Frenchmen who tried to be first to fly the Atlantic non-stop, and vanished somewhere off of Canada (maybe) instead:
“A large non-profit aeronautical association based in Switzerland has offered to assist TIGHAR in our search for l’Oiseau Blanc. Like TIGHAR, the mission of Missing.Aero (a contraction of “mission engineering”) is to carry out investigations and research to find traces of missing aircraft through applied science but, unlike TIGHAR, they do not conduct expeditions. Instead, teams of collaborators and consultants with skills in engineering sciences and technologies seek answers primarily through airborne systems and remote sensing. Of their six projects, l’Oiseau Blanc is the most famous and most historically significant missing aircraft.”
P.T. Barnum said it … so we won’t have to.
By: jack windsor - 12th November 2023 at 16:30
old Abe must have known about tighar… even then,
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time…
By: J Boyle - 11th November 2023 at 18:14
More to the point, without any verifiable solid leads as to where they might have ended up, and the probable lack of any wreckage other than a small engine, it is pretty much a guaranteed unsolvable mystery.
What would bring in more money?
–Actually finding something and solving the mystery…other than a book and a few unpaid interview shows when found, not exactly a gold mine because Nungesser and Coli aren’t exactly household names nearly 100 years after their disappearance. Not exactly another Hillary Swank film there…and no interest from women’s groups, though the French might get excited…
Or…
-Milking another mystery to provide a lifetime of employment at an apparently generous compensation rate?
By: MFowler - 10th November 2023 at 16:02
J Boyle said, “Does this.make any sense? If not, what am I missing?”
I would agree, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, at least of the common kind. And you’re not missing anything that I can see.
I think Gillespie’s renewed focus on Nungesser and Coli has very little to do with the random bits of stuff he’s found, and everything to do with the fact that maritime Canada is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy closer and much cheaperrrrrrrrrrrrrrr to mount “expeditions” to than Nikumaroro Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
He’s already said TIGHAR (read Gillespie) isn’t going back to Nikumaroro. That statement was made after his last two attempts to find funding for further island expeditions fell completely flat, and he had to piggyback onto other existing trips planned and paid for by others. Which cut into the “operating expenses” that TIGHAR raked in as part of every expedition, among other things.
By: J Boyle - 29th October 2023 at 05:33
I read a similar story about the engine being found (I think there is a version where it was left in place and not scrapped) many years ago.
The trouble with anyone finding the wreckage is there is likely no wreckage to be found.
I believe the aircraft had wood wings and was fabric covered. While it may of had a steel tube fuselage, the net effect is there wouldn’t be a lot left for any sensor (no matter how advanced) to find after spending 96 years outdoors in the harsh Maine (or Canadian Maritime province) weather.
If the group really had found AE, they could leverage that notoriety into talking the Americans or Canadians into flying a P-8/P-3 over the area looking for the engine on their training missions.
If the engine is the largest chunk left, think about it, it’s not that large.
They might find a few WWII ships lost on ferry flights, the odd C-47, or more likely, a civil light plane lost in the pre-ELT days.
Almost as laughable as TIGHAR looking for the wood/fabric/steel tube UC-64 in the channel…which is littered with metal debris.
Does this.make any sense? If not, what am I missing?
By: MFowler - 26th October 2023 at 15:06
Nice summary, Mark, and spot on as usual.
My impression is that Gillespie is finally starting to realize that his Earhart “faucet of fame” has been well and truly twisted shut. Outside of plugging his pending Earhart book, he has been pretty quiet (for him) about all things Earhart. In January 2022 he stated bluntly, “TIGHAR has no plans to return to Niku.”
Which speaks volumes, since that’s tossing away the 30-plus years and the more than $5 million he’s spent saying he’s solved the mystery.
By: mark_pilkington - 26th October 2023 at 05:15
Hearsay and Urban Legend.
Just Ricks persuasive “storytelling”
No evidence an engine was ever really found, recovered or scrapped.
No evidence that any engine found was in any way related to that specific pre-war flight and aircraft type.
It simply follows the usual TIGHAR model of contrived BS built on a foundation of Urban Myth.
By: Auster Pilot - 26th October 2023 at 04:14
I recall reading a very informative article years ago that they actually crashed in Maine. Apparently a logger came across the engine years later and hauled it out of the bush and sold it to a local scrap metal dealer. I was young at the time but it convinced me they ended up in Maine.
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October 25, 2023 at 7:44 pm