Seeking Earhart:
Underwater Explorer David Jourdan Shares Adventures
David Jourdan
Seventy-one years ago, American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. Theories about her disappearance abound, from stories about being captured by the Japanese to those of her landing and living out her days on a Pacific island.
David Jourdan doesn't adhere to either of these perhaps far-fetched theories. He is confident Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan missed Howland Island because of navigational issues, and he believes that their Lockheed Electra is sitting at the bottom of the ocean, just waiting to be discovered.
Jourdan, who is a JHU Whiting School of Engineering alumnus, is the founder and president of Nauticos LLC, a deep-ocean exploration company with an unblemished record of success in deep ocean discovery, including an Israeli submarine, historical wrecks from WWII and a cargo ship that sunk in 200 BC. Last month, Jourdan visited the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus to talk about his work and share stories about his 2002 and 2006 expeditions to find the wreckage that, if there, would lie 20,000 feet under the ocean's surface and be well preserved thanks to the low temperatures, low oxygen levels, and benign conditions at that depth.
"Our expeditions last seven weeks and are 24 hour-a-day operations," he explained. "We don't go back to port. We don't get days off. It takes us a week to get from Hawaii to our search site, and when you've traveled that far, you don't waste any time."
When asked about concerns that Earhart's plane could be scattered in small pieces across the ocean floor, Jourdan said that they "don't expect her plane would crumble like cornflakes" upon impact
Though, if it had, it may be a more desirable scenario. "It's actually easier to find small pieces over a large area than one large piece in one area," Jourdan explained.
Despite two expeditions without discovery, Jourdan is still optimistic about his chances of finding the Electra. He says he believes success is close, perhaps only one more trip - and a few million dollars of investment - away
And when it's all done, Jourdan and his partners have plans to create a traveling Earhart exhibit to share what they recover. He also talks about returning to a 200 B.C. shipwreck site he's already explored once to look for additional relics.
He closed his talk with a fitting quote from Earhart: "You have to decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying."
For Jourdan, finding Earhart's twin-engine Lockheed Electra is definitely worth the risk.