San Diego Air and Space MuseumA sailor and air navigator, Fred Noonan accompanied Amelia Earhart on her flight around the world. On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart’s plane vanished over the Pacific during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. At the time, Earhart was on the final leg of her journey. But she wasn’t alone on her historic flight. Earhart was flying with an experienced navigator named Fred Noonan. A longtime air navigator, Noonan was trained in navigating long distance flights with no electronic equipment. He was a former sea captain who’d gone on to work at Pan Am, and his sterling credentials had drawn the attention of Earhart and her husband, George Putnam. But in the decades since he and Earhart disappeared, some have speculated that Noonan may have made a fatal navigational error during their flight. How Fred Noonan Become An Air Navigator Long before he crossed paths with Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan was a boy living in Chicago. Born in 1893, Noonan was effectively orphaned at a young age and, when he was around the age of 13, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery reports that he made his way west to Seattle. Before long, Noonan found work as a merchant marine. During World War I, Noonan served aboard munition ships. In 1917, he narrowly escaped death after he missed the departure of the S/S Cairnhill, which was later torpedoed and sank. “[Everything] was lost,” Noonan later recalled, “including my passport.” After the war, Noonan continued his seafaring career and rose through the ranks to become a sea captain. But in the early 1930s, Noonan changed his trajectory. After acquiring his pilot’s license, he become an air navigator. National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian InstitutionFred Noonan began his career on the sea before transitioning into aviation. At this time, before electronic navigation, air navigators like Noonan used cues from the ground, radio signals, or even the moon and the stars to chart their course. Noonan was good at it, and soon got a job as a navigator with Pan American Airways (PAA). In 1935, Noonan served as the navigation officer on the China Clipper seaplane, and completed the first flight from San Francisco to Honolulu that April. Later that year, Fred Noonan also helped navigate the China Clipper from San Francisco to the Philippines. His profile as an air navigator was rising. And Fred Noonan was soon tapped for a historic mission: to help navigate Amelia Earhart’s attempt to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe. Amelia Earhart’s Historic Attempt to Circumnavigate The Globe Library of CongressAmelia Earhart in 1936, the year before she vanished over the Pacific Ocean. The year of 1937 was one of transition for Fred Noonan. Noonan and his first wife divorced, he left Pan Am, married his second wife, and crossed paths with Amelia Earhart, who invited him to join her flight around the world. At first, the voyage was planned to fly east to west. And it was supposed to include another navigator, Harry Manning. But while the first leg of this flight from Oakland, California, to Hawaii on March 17, 1937, occurred without a hitch, problems arose just a few days later. While taking off for the next leg, toward Howland Island, Earhart lost control of her Lockheed Electra, causing the plane to skid across the runway. No one was hurt, though the plane was damaged. And Earhart was impressed by how coolly Noonan reacted to the accident. She related that “…when the first men reached the plane and opened the door they found Fred methodically folding up his charts. He says that when I fly again he is ready to go along.” However, Manning then decided to abandon the mission. Conflicting reports claim that he was spooked by the accident, that he was fed up with Earhart’s domineering personality, or that he simply was unable to extend his leave of absence from work. In any case, it meant that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan would make their attempt alone. In May, they flew from Oakland, California, to Miami, Florida, where Earhart announced the beginning of their around-the-world flight. Though Earhart had originally planned to fly east to west, she had decided to instead fly west to east, and would next head to Puerto Rico. Bettmann/Getty ImagesAmelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, with a map of their planned route. “[My] Electra is fit once more to fly and she and I hope to cover 28,000 miles as originally planned,” Earhart stated, “but heading into dawns instead of sunsets and ending our flight at Oakland.” But the historic flight would take a terrible turn — and both Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan would disappear over the Pacific Ocean. The Disappearance of Fred Noonan And Amelia Earhart — And The Theories That Have Emerged At first, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s flight went smoothly. After a number of stops, they arrived in Lae, New Guinea, on June 29, 1937. On July 2, they took off toward Howland Island as part of the final leg of their trip. But then their plane disappeared. Wikimedia CommonsFred Noonan and Amelia Earhart in Port Darwin, Australia, just before their flight to Lae, New Guinea. Within an hour of their final transmission on July 2, 1937, the Coast Guard began a search and rescue mission. But they found no sign of the Lockheed Electra near Howland Island. Despite vigorous searches in the months that followed, no evidence of Earhart, Noonan, or their plane was ever found, and they were ultimately declared dead. So what happened? Some blame Fred Noonan. In the years since he and Earhart disappeared, some have claimed that he was an alcoholic. That said, though Noonan was in a car crash in 1937 and cited for “driving in the wrong lane,” there’s little other evidence of his alcoholism. As PBS points out, reports about his drinking didn’t emerge until the 1960s, and seem to be based on a police report about drunk driving that has since disappeared. However, it does seem that Earhart and Noonan’s flight was likely doomed because of a navigational error. The U.S. Navy’s official conclusion was that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel while searching for Howland Island, a tiny speck just two miles long in the vast Pacific Ocean. They possibly crashed in the ocean, though other theories have suggested that they overshot the island, and ended up on the island of Nikumaroro or the Marshall Islands. Stranded, with no way to communicate, they likely perished. However, one theory suggests that they were captured and killed by the Japanese. But if they did overshoot Howland Island, it perhaps wasn’t all Noonan’s fault; PBS reports that he was likely working off a map that showed Howland Island five miles away from its actual location. Regardless of the cause of their disappearance, Fred Noonan became a footnote to history when he lost his life along with Amelia Earhart. But until then, he seemed energized by their mission. Days after he disappeared, a letter he’d sent to his second wife arrived in Oakland. Noonan had written: “Amelia is a grand person for such a trip. She is the only woman flier I would care to make such a trip with because, in addition to being a fine companion, she can take hardships as well as a man – and work like one.” After reading about Fred Noonan, Amelia Earhart’s navigator, see how the Wright Brothers carried out the world’s first airplane flight in 1903. Or, look through these stories about some of the worst plane crashes in history. 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