

Why It Took 23 Yrs to Link Amelia Earhart’s Disappearance to This Scrap of Metal - mocy
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/metal-scrap-amelia-earhart/

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goodcanadian
It is funny that he is pretending to have only realized what this patch "is"
as there were claims from TIGHAR several years ago that this piece of metal
could be that patch. As I commented on another article, yesterday, I am highly
skeptical of any of their claims as they seem to draw highly fanciful
conclusions from very little evidence.

~~~
curtis
The thing that's changed recently is the theory about _which_ part of the
airplane the patch might have been applied to.

From [http://tighar.org/wiki/2-2-V-1](http://tighar.org/wiki/2-2-V-1)
([http://tighar.org/aw/mediawiki/index.php?title=2-2-V-1&oldid...](http://tighar.org/aw/mediawiki/index.php?title=2-2-V-1&oldid=7737)
if the wiki page gets edited):

> "All aspects of the artifact, including the rivet pattern, fit closely with
> a section of the belly on the right hand side of the aircraft between
> stations 269 5/8ths and 293 5/8ths..."

My recollection is that they ultimately decided that the patch did not match
the section of the belly described in the quote. It's only been in the last
couple of months that they started thinking that the patch might have been one
that covered the window.

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johnlbevan2
(Qualifier: I know very little about planes or the background of this case)

If the part found was a last minute patch, I'd guess that the patch wasn't
properly attached, so came off in flight; then the plane crashed as a result
of losing the patch. Otherwise, what are the chances of that being the only
piece found...

~~~
exDM69
That's the first thought that springs to mind, but not necessarily the case.

Aircraft from that era were quite solid and they did not have a pressurized
hull. The Lockheed Electra and other similar aircraft from the same era flew
in wartime operations and regularly came back full of holes.

A single window broken cover should not bring an otherwise sound 1930s era
aircraft down.

~~~
snowballsteve
Exactly correct. There is no way a missing window would bring down the plane,
especially the back window, unless by some freak accident the patch damaged a
control surface on the tail by breaking free. One can think of an almost
limitless list of more likely hypotheses.

~~~
davvolun
To be completely fair, a list such as insulating foam peeling off and striking
the wing
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia#Final_mi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia#Final_mission_and_destruction))
or a random bird striking a plane and causing a failure
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike#Incidents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike#Incidents))?
I'm not saying it happened, or even that it's likely, I'm saying stranger
things have happened.

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dang
[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=amelia+earhart+metal#!/story/sort_...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=amelia+earhart+metal#!/story/sort_by_date/0/amelia%20earhart)

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jmount
Is there even a legit/documented chain of custody on the metal patch?

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amjaeger
Clearly after becoming a castaway Earhart learned to fight and became a ninja.
She managed to get of the Island, and when she returned she became a bad-ass
vigilante. She didn't tell anyone she came back because that would have made
it more likely that her secret identity would be discovered.

