Update on Steve Fossett
 

This is pretty interesting. Now, when will they find D.B. Cooper too?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/01/fossett.discovery/index.html

Really amazing that we can't find the guy, in this day and age, and with our technology.

Mountain lion habitat shrinking.
Mountain lion hungry.
Hard to track mountain lion poop.

Apologies to charleskieffner .....:)

Nice haiku.:D

Yeah, but did they eat the plane too? I mean c'mon, are they THAT hungry?

No the Mountain Goats got the airplane Alumium...havn't you ever watched Green Acres...

That was a good juan! ;)

What's amazing to me is that apparently neither he nor his plane had any kind of tracking beacon or transponder on it.

Some say maybe he wanted to disappear.

Maybe he knew this whole financial meltdown hoohah was gonna happen and is chillin' in Costa Rica right now.

Even if the plane did, it could have impacted hard enough to render the device in-op. Also, the usual device in a private plane, has to be triggered by the a person and it is usually located outside and to the back of the plane.

My dad had his emergency locator switch rewired and now has the ability to turn it on from his seat - as he is going down.

I always thought ELT's had G-Switches on them...

OK, forget the "User has to operate" part. The pilot can manually operate. Either way, they are easily damaged/destroyed and won't send much of a signal if the impact is great enough or plane hits the ground just right.

They all do. They are triggered by a sudden stop or deceleration in the forward direction. (eg: like flying head on into the side of a mountain)


It is possible to crash an airplane in a way that does not trigger it (a flat spin impacting the ground in a turning and or pancake direction could fail to trigger it).

Elt's indeed have a manual switch on them and are easily detached from the airframe so that a pilot making a safe landing in a remote area can remove it and take it with him as he hikes out towards civilization. Some aircraft also have a remote panel mounted switch to activate it from the cockpit.

Elt's are function tested at each annual inspection and most require a new battery pack every two years to remain legal.

Ah HAH!
SmileWavy
:cool:

It has also been reported that he wore a GPS watch. For some un-explained reason he had failed to wear it on the day he disappeared. Leading to the suspicion that he faked his disappearance. Although the state has declared him dead the insurance company has yet to pay.

Sniff, ya caught me!

I try not to think about crashing airplanes. Bad for the psyche.

weathered sweat shirt, cash and a pilot's license with Fossett's name were found Tuesday near Mammoth Lakes

His plane took off from Minden NV which is about 100 miles from Mammoth Lakes CA.

You guys who know more about the Fossett situation - what do these new facts imply?

It's only about 75 miles southwest of the departure airport, I measured it with Google maps.

IMHO they don't mean a thing. Fossett hadn't filed a flight plan and had not really told anyone where he intended to fly. Suspicious? Those items found could have easily been "planted" by himself or someone perpetuating the hoax. The fact that ALL the safety equipment available to him failed all at the same time is more than suspicious to me.

Plus I'd like to hear a few details of the hiker who found this debris. Was he some Joe Hiker out for a stroll on well traveled trails or was he some survivalist on a 3 month journey where no man has gone before? It's hard to imagine how someone can find Fossett's pocket contents but not the big ole plane he was flying in.

Pocket contents were undigestable.
;)

ELTs do have G switches in them and most aircraft have an "ARM/ON" switch installed within easy reach of the pilot's seat.

That said, I've done plenty of flying around the MMH area - lots of places to disappear up there. There are ravines and gullies up that way that probably haven't seen human footprints since the dawn of time. Flying in/around there can get downright treacherous too - weather can blow in VERY quickly (especially in winter), density altitude, box canyons, downdrafts, etc. There are lots and lots of exciting and creative ways to kill onesself up there if you're so inclined.

A simple engine failure in a single-engine airplane up there could very easily be a one way ticket to the afterlife. I can't wait to hear what turns up in the investigation, but my suspicion is Mr. Fossett did not "play it safe" with his route selection and apply the one rule that SHOULD BE drilled into every single-engine pilot's head from Day #1 - "know where the F you're going when the big fan out front stops spinning". That's speculation on my part, but I've seen this too many times - the NTSB database is FULL of these kinds of stories.

I don't believe it, I saw him myself Sat night at street vibrations in Reno.. everyone knows he drives a Harley...

Finding the plane may be tough now.

Super Decathalon is fabric covered, wings and fuselage, with aluminum spars (not readily visible) and the fabric may be pretty decrepit by now if it's even still intact.

Also, it's a pretty small plane - like a Piper cub. A 2 seater; tandem. Cruise speed is only 120+ mph.

He didn't file a flight plan, said he was going to fly around and scout for desert landing locations and would return to the same airport a few hours later.

Rated for acrobatics - trainer. Don't know if it would have had an ELT.

Should have been able to glide moderately well if lost power. But not if he hit the side of a mountain.

He could have passed out. Not that old, and in pretty good shape.

Didn't realize he was in a Super D. Good airplane - I've got some time in one myself. Not especially great for mountain flying though. It wouldn't take much of a downdraft to slap one into the ground or much of a rotor to knock one out of control. Plenty of both up in those mountains. Anyone know if there was much of a wind that day? If so, I can guarantee there was some real bumpy and potentially treacherous flying up there. I know it all too well...

If he impacted terrain and the crash caught fire, the fabric covering would burn up leaving only a charred bare fuselage made of small diameter steel tubing which would be nearly impossible to spot on search missions in rough terrain. Also, if it happened to burn on impact, the ELT would have burned up and only transmitted for a moment. All that said, if it burned, the stuff that was found recently would have been destroyed also. It is really hard to know for sure, but as P.O.P. noted above, not much good can happen when a problem arises while flying over that type of treacherous terrain.

Wonder what color the plane was. Visibility from the air?

Tim it's REALLY dry this time of year here ( as it was when he went down) my guess is it didn't burn or they'd have seen the fire..

10:00 PM (PDT) news sez a wreckage has now been spotted from the air in the location of the discovery earlier today......

Here's the news, not much more than stated above:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gfmXbQn-RFLHSjd8_s23ytiM6OVAD93I5P5O0

Seems like the wreckage has been found:

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2403486,00.html

Washington - Rescue crews have found the wreckage of a small plane that appears to be the aircraft piloted by millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday.

The NTSB said the small airplane found on Wednesday "appears to be the aircraft piloted by Steve Fossett".

Fossett's small Bellanca airplane has been missing since September 3, 2007, when the pilot left Nevada for a local flight.

The wreckage was located about 3 200m up the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the vicinity of Mammoth Lakes, California. The NTSB said it has sent an investigator to the accident site.

- Reuters

That's pretty high terrain. If he was injured or had some broken bones trying to hike his way out of there he'd have had enormous difficulty. Nighttime up there can get extremely cold too. I think he's a gonner and they'll probably find his remains in a week or so a couple miles from the wreck. Unfortunate.

Cold & altitude do not help healing or strength levels either.

Maybe he's been living in a cave and eating berries.

Plane found to have impacted the side of a mountain. The engine was several hundred feet away from the fuselage. Plane "very, very heavily damaged". No human remains.

"If we don't find remains soon, we probably never will, animals typically drag them off and devour them." according to a searcher.

There were very heavy thunderheads in the area of the crash on the day of the crash. Not good w/ that aircraft. Very light and low powered.

Doubtful he survived slamming into a mountainside with that kind of force.

Most of the plane's fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found several hundred feet away at an elevation of 9,700 feet, authorities said.

"It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly," said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nev., who assisted the search.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081002/ap_on_re_us/fossett_search

At least they can put the mystery to rest. RIP to a true adventurer, not many like him left.

If he had to die, better he didn't survive the impact only to be greviously injured and die of exposure or worse - a bear or something. No one deserves that.

Rest In Peace Steve Fossett.

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>>> Fossett's Decathlon Located Near Mammoth Lakes

WRECKAGE CONFIRMED AS FOSSETT'S DECATHLON
(http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/SteveFossett_MissingAviator_SuperDecathlonWreckage Found_198901-1.html)

Authorities have confirmed that wreckage found in the Mammoth Lakes
area of northeastern California is that of the Super Decathlon Steve
Fossett was reported missing in just over a year ago. However, early
reports of the circumstances of the crash may raise more questions
than they answer about the end of a flight that sparked the largest
air and ground search in recent memory.

"It was a head-on crash into the side of a mountain, into a rock,"
Madera County Sheriff John Anderson told a news conference, according
to the San Francisco Chronicle
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/02/BAEU13A99B.DTL).
"The plane disintegrated. We found the engine 300 feet from the
fuselage." No body has been found. When Fossett took off from Barron
Hilton's Minden, Nevada-area ranch, the weather was clear and Fossett
was reportedly going on a local flight to check out dry lake beds for
a planned land speed record bid.

Mammoth Lakes is a mountainous area east of Yosemite National Park.
Anderson said the wreckage was found at about the 10,000-foot level
and was about a quarter mile from where a hiker found Fossett's pilot
certificates and clothing
(http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Report_SteveFossettItemsFoundByHiker_198896-1.html)

two days earlier.

Watch AVweb.com for more news on the disappearance of Steve Fossett:
http://www.avweb.com

NTSB spokesperson Mark Rosenker said enough remains were found for the coroner to work with and that "additional property" bearing Fossett's name was found with the body.

Stay with RGJ.com for details as the story develops.

Sounds like controlled fight into the earth. I imagine very low visiblility and he never saw it until he hit or saw it too late to react. Prolly dead on impact.
Pure conjecture but it's plausible.

Not a very fitting way for a man with his accomplishments to end but thats life, sometimes cruel, sometimes ironic. At least now his family gets some closure and once the DNA results are final the insurance company will have to cut that big check they've been holding back on.

About 15 yrs ago when I was taking flying lessons, a friend asked me to ride with him in a rented Cessna 172 to drop off a prototype prop he had made to a college in Virginia. The return trip was at night, and we stopped at some controlled airport near there for fuel which was near some mountains (my memory is shot and I can't recall what airport it was). My friend forgot to reset the directional gyro ( for the non pilots: it is kind of like a compass only it is gyro instrument running on vacuum and must be reset to compass heading after restarting the engine). The controller cleared us to climb out on a certain heading which my buddy acknowledged. I was looking out the right window and could see nothing... not a single light on the ground. Eventually the controllers noticed we were heading off course on the radar and in a panicky voice ordered us to turn immediately. After my buddy figured out what he had done he apologized to the controller and set his DG to compass heading and continued on course. The controller came back on and told us we had been heading right for a mountain side!

Later on that flight home at about 1:00 am, it started raining and he handed me a flashlight to periodically shine it out the window to look for ice on the leading edges. Needless to say, as a new student pilot, I got a good scare and a quick education about treating flying and prepartion with respect. My friend at the time was not very current and did not fly much back then. Since then he has bought a couple planes and is a bit more diligent about safety compared to back then. I still razz him about that lovey trip.