Box May Be Clue to Earhart Fate

Amateur aircraft sleuths speculated Thursday that a metal cabinet found on a remote South Pacific island is from the plane of aviator Amelia Earhart, who has been missing since 1937.

Although the investigators acknowledged that the evidence is strictly circumstantial, an FBI expert said he found nothing “which would disqualify this artifact as having come from the Earhart aircraft.” He said the paint on the metal bookcase is “consistent with the materials that were being used” in 1937.

Richard E. Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, said at a news conference that the aluminum box found on Gardner Island had been identified as a navigator’s bookcase of the type used during the era when Earhart’s airplane disappeared. He said members of his group must return to the island to gather more evidence.

A floor plan of the Earhart aircraft indicates that the 14-by-9-by-9 1/2-inch box could have fit exactly against a bulkhead under the navigator’s table, Gillespie said.

Earhart in 1932 became the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared July 2, 1937, while trying to complete an around-the-world flight in a two-engine Lockheed 10-E Electra.