Amelia Earhart arrives in Ireland, May 21, 1932

 "For the first 4 hours out I had beautiful weather and I could see the sky and ocean. Everything was lovely. Then all of a sudden I ran into rain squalls and heavy wind. Then my exhaust manifold burnt out and bright red flames began shooting out the side. I was not frightened, but it isn't any fun to have those flames so near you. If there were an oil or gas leak it might cause trouble.

 Then my altimeter went wrong- the first time in ten years of flying. It was dark and cloudy and raining and there was nothing for me to do but start climbing. I fixed an easy gradient and kept it up for some time.

Then I discovered my tachometer had frozen, so I knew I was high enough. Ice formation on my wings made me drop lower. It was only twice after that I caught glimpses of the ocean. Once I dropped down and saw little white waves under me, but looking down on mountains when man is missing from the picture I had no measure to tell how high they were, or high I was above them- maybe 100 feet, maybe 300. When the morning of Saturday came I was flying between two layers of clouds. The one below me was composed of little white wooly ones. After awhile they all joined together and formed just a big white blanket like a snowfall stretching in every direction.

When the sun broke through the blanket above me it was so blinding that, even with my smoked glasses, I had to come down and fly in the clouds for awhile so I can see again.

It was here that I caught my second glimpse of ocean. I saw waves running before a northwest wind and thinking I was pretty far south, I turned due east. The result was that I hit Ireland in about the middle, whereas if I had gone on I probably would have passed the southern tip. There must have been some errors in the weather bureaus calculations, because they thought I would miss the rain all together. When I got into the squalls I suppose I was to the south and kept correcting to the north. I had plenty of fuel and could have kept right on to Paris but my motor was straining so after sighting land, which I knew must be Ireland, I decided to come down.

I could see peat bogs and thatched huts below me. I headed north along a railway track and and after awhile flew over Londonderry. Fifteen minutes later I had landed."