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
Fred Noonan running on 157–337 degrees) which Noonan would have calculated and drawn on a chart as passing through Howland. Two-way radio contact was never established, and the aviators and their aircraft disappeared somewhere over the Central Pacific Ocean. Despite an unprecedented, extensive search by the U.S. Navy—including the use of search aircraft from an aircraft carrier—and the U.S. Coast Guard, no traces of them or their Electra were ever found. Later research showed that Howland's position was misplaced on their chart by approximately five nautical miles. There is also some motion picture evidence to suggest that a belly antenna on their