7. The theory of what happened to Earhart’s Electra at Gardner Island
According to the hypothesis of what happened to Earhart on Gardner Island, Earhart landed the airplane on the reef just offshore, or possibly the beach itself, near the wreck of SS Norwich City. Gardner Island is the tip of a seamount, which drops nearly vertically to the seafloor in a series of ledges and cliffs, nearly sixteen thousand feet below the surface. Earhart and Noonan were unable to move the aircraft further inland. Over an unspecified period of time, wave action pulled the aircraft over the edge of the reef. It sank, either being beaten to pieces along the ledges and cliff faces as it descended, or gliding away from the mount, carried by its wings to an unspecified location.
In 2010, forensic analysis of the Bevington photograph revealed something in the water not far from the wreck of Norwich City. The image appeared to be similar to the landing gear from an Electra. Part of the image appeared darker than the rest, which could be the tire, which may have provided enough buoyancy to keep the rest of the landing gear afloat after it broke away from the aircraft. US government photographic forensic analysts corroborated the finding in 2012. The US State Department endorsed another expedition to Nikumaroro, TIGHAR’s Niku VII expedition, to search for wreckage of Earhart’s Electra in the deep waters off the atoll. The expedition claimed to have discovered a debris field, though it did not specify its location for purposes of security.