Air Force pays goooood[0].
But seriously:
>> but then we're thinking: 'How do we lift the plane? How do we salvage it?'"
Don't. Just leave it. Be happy it was found, but just be respectful and leave it.
[0] Yes, I RTFA.
But seriously:
>> but then we're thinking: 'How do we lift the plane? How do we salvage it?'"
Don't. Just leave it. Be happy it was found, but just be respectful and leave it.
[0] Yes, I RTFA.
I don't see anything inherently disrespectful about rasing the plane from the seabed. I recall people telling James Cameron that he should leave the Titanic alone but he made a great movie and brought the ship back in to the public imagination and didn't disrespect the fact many souls were lost tragically. The ship was deemed not economically viable to salvage but this plane is much much smaller and it may be worth putting in a museum.
I'm presuming you are offended on behalf of other people but if not can you elaborate why you find the idea so offensive or disrespectful?
Enjoy disagreeing...
Even looking for Titanic was a cover story in the first place. They were actually looking for a sunken Russian sub that was sorta in the area. It was only when they had a bit of left over time at the end of the mission that they ACTUALLY found Titanic, almost accidentally.
I think HumblyTossed is suggesting this group do exactly what Cameron did: investigate and document but not remove. If this is Earhart's plane, it's probably also her grave. We generally frown on disturbing the resting places of the dead for commercial purposes.
What "worth" do you see in placing it in a museum?
Example: https://www.facebook.com/RoyalAviationMuseumofWesternCanada/...
Only because no one knew where she was to bury her properly.
I assume you don't say that we shouldn't recover bodies from ANY plane crash; most people would expect bodies to be moved from a plane crash to be buried properly.
Why is this one different? The length of time it took to find the crash, I assume. So how long before we can't move the body because it is a grave? 3 months? A year? 10 years?
I don't think I would consider this a grave, and recovering the body and burying it properly is not grave robbing.
> I don't think I would consider this a grave
If by not a "grave" you mean not an "intentional burial site" I agree. But it would be a final resting place and, to the question I was answering ("why would people object") that's a thing that people care about being handled with the proper care and consideration.
Trying to guess how other people would feel about things is a complete academic exercise in this case for me.
The same value as anything else in a museum? It's historically important, and also really cool, the kind of thing that inspires kids and even adults.
(I saw Halifax W1048 at an impressionable age and am very glad I did)
Let's not get hyperbolic. She's already well known. Agreed though that displaying her plane in a museum would seem respectful to me.
I think it's a great thing to locate and document the discovery but I don't see much to be gained from raising it.
Document it, photograph it, leave it.
There's no reason to lift it, to "restore it", etc.
It's a wreck. Leave it alone.
Go find a "modern" Electra, and make that as "close to Earharts" plane for your display. But there's no reason to drag this thing up.
If this plane were shot down, it would be considered a war grave and left untouched. No reason to not treat this the same.
Rejoice if she has, indeed, been found. Peace for the families, finally.
IDK if littering wrecks is more respectful than putting them in a museum.
There were quite a few model 10 Electras built. Over a dozen survive, with several still flying. The Earhart museum already has a 10E, even.
Like the Titanic, maybe we just let it rest in peace? Send a sub down to confirm what it is. Then maybe update a few of the monuments to her to indicate her final resting place has been found…
My only concern would be looters. If it is quite feasible to access “easily” then yeah maybe we should recover it just to protect against looters and pillagers.
[1] https://www.perthilj.com/blog/2019/2/19/aircraft-salvage-in-...
With respect to the argument of putting the plane rests in a museum: I do not see how that would be better than being able to visit the actual place where the crash occurred, with the plane still somewhere below the waves.
Yes, it's a plane not a person. We can learn from it, and Earhart won't care.
There will be no FAA safety notices (or whatever they are called) based on the findings.
There is value in showing respect for the dead, mostly for the benefit of those near death and the grieving families, but the arguments made here seem weird to me. Do we seal homes and turn them into tombs when a person dies inside? Do we leave car wrecks on the side of the road?
> Do we leave car wrecks on the side of the road?
No, but we also don't need 80 years to find car wrecks on the side of the road, and there are various reasons to remove them. This comparison is ridiculous.
A home in which someone died can be used again by another person after proper cleaning and what not. Wrecks on the side of the road are usually removed because they are a danger to other motorists.
In the case of Earhart's plane the air frame and navigation systems are 75ish years out of date so it's not like there is a pressing need to solve a potential safety issue. IMO there is nothing of value to be gained besides "solving the mystery" and perhaps gathering a few personal artifacts that could be displayed in a museum or returned to the families.
If they get lost for 80+ years, yeah, we do. There's a state park not far from me that has a trail that uses an old highway's right of way for a bit. The highway is long long gone, but if you look down from the trail into the gully nearby, you can still make out a few rusting hulks of cars from the 1920's and 1930's that went off the road and were just left there.