Fred Noonan of Amelia Earhart" on Plainsong's album "In Search of Amelia Earhart." Noonan is a main character in Jane Mendelsohn's acclaimed novel, "I Was Amelia Earhart" (1996), and in Neal Bowers' poem "The Noonan Variations" ("The Sewanee Review", Volume CXVIII, 1990). 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
Fred Noonan Electra might have snapped on takeoff (the purpose of this antenna has not been identified, however radio communications seemed normal as they climbed away from Lae). One relatively new theory suggests that Noonan may have made a mistake in navigation due to the flight's crossing of the International Date Line. Many researchers including navigator and aeronautical engineer Elgen Long believe that the Electra ran out of fuel and that Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. The "crash and sink" theory is often the most widely accepted explanation of Earhart's and Noonan's fate. In her last message received at Howland Island,