Fred Noonan Fred Noonan Frederick Joseph "Fred" Noonan (born April 4, 1893; declared missing July 2, 1937 and dead June 20, 1938), was an American flight navigator, sea captain and aviation pioneer who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific Ocean during the 1930s. He was last seen in Lae, New Guinea, on July 2, 1937, on the last land stop with famed aviator Amelia Earhart (1897-1937), as her navigator when they disappeared somewhere over the Central Pacific Ocean during one of the last legs of their attempted pioneering round-the-world flight. Fred Noonan was born in Cook County, Illinois (the
Ann Pellegreno when Pellegreno and her crew made their round-the-world flight. Pellegreno proceeded from Willow Run, Detroit, Michigan on June 7, 1967 to Oakland, to take off from the same airport from which Earhart departed 30 years before. It was wheels-up on this commemorative round-the-world flight on June 9 when she took off from Oakland flying east on their journey. Pellegreno and her team followed the same route Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan followed in 1937, but for better re-fueling connections landed at differing airports. They carried 2,000 sets of philatelic covers that would be canceled at various cities on their path,