John F. Rippinger, a spirited aviation enthusiast and acrobatic and formation pilot, known as

"Ripper," recently was keynote speaker at a Rotary Club of Scottsdale luncheon meeting held at

McCormick Ranch Golf Club. During his introduction, Rotarian Gary Dorris stated that the Ripper has piloted his T-34 Mentor for 22 years with the Lima Lima Flight Team, which is the world's first six-aircraft civilian precision formation aerobatic team.  Lima Lima has performed in air shows from coast to coast and border to border, thrilling more than 100 million spectators with the beauty and the grace of their precision performances.  The Ripper has been flying for over 50 years both in fixed wing and balloons.   

 

The Ripper, participated with the TIGHAR (The International Group For Historic Aircraft Recovery) expedition team in the South Pacific to search for the lost plane of Amelia Earhart in 2017.  Ripper shared with the Rotarians and their guests insights into the search - noting that it's a mystery that's puzzled the world for more than 80 years: what happened to Amelia Earhart who along with her navigator, Fred Noonan, were on the second-to-last leg of their trip around the world when they disappeared on July 2, 1937 in the South Pacific?  

 

 

The Ripper shared several theories about what could have happened to Earhart and Noonan, including that their plane crashed somewhere over the ocean or that they were captured and taken prisoner by the Japanese. In 2017, that theory got a boost from a photo discovered in the National Archives that many thought showed Earhart and Noonan on a dock being taken prisoner.  In 2018, remains discovered on Nikumaroro Island in the South Pacific 80 years ago were forensically tested by researchers at the University of Tennessee, who concluded "they likely belonged to Earhart."   

 

The Ripper shared with the Rotarians his belief that the odds are at least 75% that Earhart landed on Nikumaroro Island and subsequently died there. He has been there looking for evidence and says the survival rate would have been extremely poor due to the tough jungle, deadly creatures, lack of food, and extremely deep waters (up to 15,000 feet deep right off shore).  The sand on the Island is actually hard enough to safely land a plane and the Islandmay have been their only hope to survive.

 

Additionally, the Ripper shared other theories - i.e. Earhart really did land the plane safely, but they died of natural causes on this remote uninhabited (at the time) island with no way to communicate with anyone.  He talked about National Geographic's diving down 15,000 feet with robots, etc. to search for the plane, which could easily have been swept out to sea due to very heavy winds.  National Geographic has scheduled a special TV program in October 2019 to go over their findings.