INSIDE THIS ISSUE Now on Netflix ......................................................2 New on Hulu .........................................................2 Amazon Prime .......................................................3
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‘Downton Abbey’ revisited
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Maggie Smith’s top 10 movies
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View from the Couch: ‘Lion King’
Puzzles ...................................................................4 Local Events ..........................................................7 Movie Schedule .....................................................7
The
Sumter Scene October O t b 20 - 26, 26 2019
The search for Amelia Earhart’s plane is the subject of “Expedition Amelia” Sunday on National Geographic.
‘Expedition Amelia’ – Ballard seeks Earhart BY GEORGE DICKIE It’s late July and Bob Ballard is certain where Amelia Earhart’s plane is. He’s done the research, weighed all the evidence, eliminated theories and locations and deduced an exact spot where the wreckage is. The only thing left to do, in his mind, is go there and find it. Which is what the oceanographer and explorer best known for the 1985 discovery of the Titanic shipwreck has intended to do in “Expedition Amelia.” Premiering Sunday, Oct. 20, on National Geographic, the two-hour special narrated by Allison Janney follows Ballard and his team of scientists, technicians and Earhart experts aboard the research vessel EV Nautilus as they explore the waters around the Phoenix Islands in the Western Pacific, about 1,700 nautical miles southwest of Honolulu. Earhart, the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic, disappeared with her navigator Fred Noonan on July 2, 1937, as she was attempting a circumnavigational flight of the world. Radio transmissions and other evidence point to her plane going down somewhere in that area. One of those islands, Nikumaroro, was the focus of Ballard’s search in late summer. “There’s really two possibilities,” said Ballard, seated in a quiet corner of a Beverly Hills, Calif., hotel, on a sunny mid-summer afternoon. “She landed on that island and we have no idea where she is. But there’s no credible place to land than that island. Otherwise she ran out of gas and went clunk. But there is so much compelling evidence that points to this island.” Ballard posited that Earhart and Noonan were looking for a place to land for the night and found a beach at Nikumaroro that was exposed
at low tide. But this being a coral island, the landing was rough and irreparably damaged the plane’s landing gear, thus stranding them. Noonan also sustained a head injury, which Ballard surmised from Earhart’s last radio transmissions. After some time, the two perished, he likely first from his wounds and she later from starvation and/or exposure. So the plane, he believed, was on that beach, which is actually on the side of a volcano, but somewhere below the waves, on what he believes is likely an underwater terrace. Ballard says getting to it would be the challenge. “It comes down inside extremely complex terrain in pitch black,” he explains. “So we’re going in there in pitch black on the side of a volcano where coral has been plastering on and there’s going to be a debris field embedded in a quarry so there’s lots of false targets. You can’t do it with sonar. You have to go visual. But we’re extremely good at visual.” Ultimately, though, the search of Nikumaroro turned up no plane and it was called off in late August. But Ballard and his team were next headed to nearby Howland Island, Earhart’s intended landing spot, to map the surrounding waters for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Perhaps something would turn up there. If he finds the plane, Ballard is prepared for the emotions that will inevitably hit. “The feeling will be one of professional joy and personal reflection and sadness,” he says. “Because that moment will hit us because I’ve been hit like that multiple times and it’s a powerful hit because you’re now forever linked to an amazing moment in history. I mean, that’s quite an honor.”
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