Earhart Mystery Study Set
Pilot Greets Husband
Mrs. Ann Pellegreno (center), kisses husband, Don, after arriving in Newton, Kan., while Mrs. Muriel Earhart Morrissey of West Bedford, Mass., looks on. She is the sister of Amelia Earhart, who disappeared on a flight 30 years ago.
Earhart Mystery Study Set
NEWTON, Kan. (AP)—Aviatrix Ann Pellegreno, whose globe-circling flight simulated that taken by Amelia Earhart 30 years ago, said Sunday no theories on her predecessor’s mysterious disappearance have been discarded.
But Mrs. Pellegreno told Newton audience that bad weather may have been a factor or the ill-fated flight.
Mrs. Pellegreno completed her 28-day flight around the world in Oakland, Calif., Friday, and flew on to Newton for Sunday’s special celebration in her honor.
A crowd, estimated at 8,500, surrounded the Saline, Mich., housewife’s Lockheed Electra as it rolled to a stop at the Newton Airport. It is the same model plane flown by Miss Earhart in 1937.
We have not discarded any theories concerning Miss Earhart’s disappearance," Mrs. Pellegreno said. “I’m not going to say either way. I would not want to have to retract anything later on.”
She said sources along her route would send information about the Earhart flight, and that it would be evaluated with her own experience.
Mrs. Pellegreno told the airport crowd that the weather at Howland Island in the Pacific, where Miss Earhart was last heard from, could have been a factor in what happened to her plane.
“We ran into tremendous rain squalls that obscured the island,’’ Mrs. Pellegreno said. “They just couldn’t see the island with the navigation equipment they had at that time."
Miss Earhart also would have experienced difficulty with the landing field on the island at that time and with the weight her plane carried, Mrs. Pellegreno said.
Among those who greeted her Sunday was Mrs. Elbert (Muriel Earhart) Morrissey of Medord, Mass., a sister of Miss Earhart.
Mrs. Pellegreno was accompanied on her flight by Air Force Col. William Payne of McLean, Va., as co-pilot; William Polhemus of Ann Arbor, Mich., her navigator, and Lee Koepke of Ypsilanti, Mich., her mechanic and owner of the plane.
(The principals are scheduled to arrive at Willow Run Airport tonight.)