The Mystery of Small Planes

I blogged a few weeks ago about Amelia Earhart and the small plane that let her down in the end; she disappeared in 1937, and how she died remains the subject of debate. America is still awaiting news of explorer Steve Fossett, who disappeared in his small plane on September 3rd. And on this day in 1997, John Denver crashed in his small plane and died on impact.

Many a celebrity and many an adventurer has died in a small plane crash; Denver's death was particularly sad for me, because I'd always been a fan of his music. While some criticized Denver for not being country enough and others simply labeled him as weird, I always recognized the poet in him--all one had to do was listen to his songs.

Denver focused on nature and positive feelings. His tribute to his first wife Annie, appropriately named "Annie's Song," was one of the loveliest tributes ever written. How could a woman not be flattered when a man claimed "You fill up my senses/like a night in a forest; like the mountains in springtime/like a walk in the rain; like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean. You fill up my senses; come fill me again." ?

One of my favorite Denver tunes was a little-known anthem to nature called Eagle and Hawk. It went:

"Oh, I am the eagle, I live in high country
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky;
I am the hawk, and there's blood on my feathers,
But time is still turning, they soon will be dry.
And all those who see me, and all who believe in me,
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly . . .

Come dance with the west wind and
Touch all the mountaintops;
Sail oe'r the canyons and up to the stars--
And reach for the heavens and hope for the future,
All that you can be, not what you are."

Denver's crash shocked me, because I had just seen him on a talk show a couple of days before. He was fifty-three but looked ten years younger; he was happy and positive and talking about new music he was going to be making. And then, in an instant, he was gone in the way so many others had been gone before him. Like Earhart and Fossett, Denver couldn't resist flying, and his aircraft was considered experimental.

Denver's website claims that "John Denver’s generosity of spirit colored his music with a pure, simple grace, casting a spell that crossed the barriers of age, economics, geography, language and politics."

I would have to agree. And while Denver accomplished much, not only in his music but in acts of philanthropy, I wish he had been given a bit more time.

Photo link.

How We Failed Amelia

I've always been fascinated by the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. As mysteries go, it's certainly in my top ten of the interesting and unsolved, and I've always rather romantically connected it to the notion of the Bermuda triangle (which has been thoroughly debunked).

Friday I was listening to The Story with Dick Gordon, a show on NPR that I greatly enjoy, and he was discussing Earhart and the fact that she may, in fact, have survived her plane trouble, landed the plane, and sent distress calls, and that one fifteen-year-old girl, way back in 1937, recorded the distress signals that she heard that day on her father's short-wave radio.

The girl, Betty Klenck Brown, is now in her eighties. In an interview with Dick Gordon, she said that she recognized the voice of Amelia Earhart that day. Earhart had already been missing for a couple of days, and Brown knew that. Because Earhart was a celebrity and a hero to women and men alike, much of America knew the sound of her voice from recorded interviews. Therefore, Betty knew that the distress calls were real and important, and for three hours she wrote down everything that she heard.

Her father eventually came home and heard a bit, too, and he went to the Coast Guard (they lived in Florida) with the information (although NOT with Betty's notebook, which I find regrettable) and was told that everything was being handled and his input was not needed.

Betty was not believed, and I suppose as a young woman in 1937, she didn't have a lot of resources to tap in an effort to help Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan (who Betty describes as being "out of his head.")

Ultimately Betty's notebook, with its valuable information, simply became her burden, because no one wanted it and no one believed her. (You can view the notebook, Earhart's route, pictures of Betty and a film of Earhart's last takeoff at The Story).

What bothers me the most about this story is that anyone in charge would discount what seemed like such valid information, and that they wouldn't at least ask to see the notebook, which could have told them the frequency on which Earhart was broadcasting. In other words, based on hearing this story, I think that Amelia Earhart heroically landed her plane when it developed problems, radioed for help over several days, and never received it, and probably died on a small island in the South Pacific.

I love knowing the solution to a mystery, but this one is not satisfying, and my obsessive mind keeps thinking about what would have happened, what could have happened, if people had merely opened their minds to the possibilities.

Today the police, the FBI, the coast guard, often turn to the public and ask for help in solving crimes and disappearances. They set up tip lines and offer rewards. I wonder why this couldn't have been the case with Amelia Earhart, and why no one thought that one girl's precious notebook was worth examining.