Lae Airfield crane above the aircraft. The Lae airport is probably best remembered for being the point of departure in July 1937 for Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on their flight to Howland Island. Earhart's plane disappeared near Howland Island some 19 hours after departing Lae airport. Lae Airfield Lae Airfield is a former World War II airfield and later, civilian airport located at Lae, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The airport was closed in the 1980s, in favour of Lae Nadzab Airport, which was able to accommodate larger jet aircraft. The airport was known as Lae Drome or Lae Aerodrome
Desmond Noonan Desmond Noonan Desmond "Dessie" Noonan (8 August 1959 – 19 March 2005) was an English organised crime figure from Manchester, who acted as a political fixer for the Noonan crime family. He and his younger brother, Dominic Noonan, were suspected by police to be responsible for at least 25 unsolved murders during their 20-year reign over Manchester's underworld. Mainly because of the very dangerous contacts Desmond Noonan had made during his reign as "Britain's number one Drag Queen ", his family was at the end of the 1990s known as "one of the most notorious crime families in British history".