Steve Fosset, what's the rest of the story?

OK Vance, that's all well and good, but I'm not drinking the Kool aid on this one.

Mr Fosset was one of the most reknown aviators of our time; his aircraft goes down in a finite area, and not even NASA can detect the crash site? What with all of today's technology I would suspect that it could be found by now, even in the Nevada desert. Guess I'll have to go plan another adventure based on this, and that guy that bailed out in the '70's....
 
Yah, THAT guy Esav! I actually think it might be fun to plan some future WSS adventures based around looking for the Fosset crash site. If nothing else it would get folks out into an environment that is interesting to WSS types.
 
If it's rough enough that he hasn't been found by now, it might take some careful planning for safety's sake.
 
I agree, water planning being the most prominent, but i would'nt rule out rope courses either being the Nevada desert and all from what I recall of the Red Rock area. Just like a bit more closure than 'widow gets insurance check' in this case. Its not like he ditched into the Pacific; and why could'nt the plane be found by transponder signal? One would think an aviator of Mr Fossett's level would have the latest in all flying tech; and as such have an aircraft fully prepped for such a situation.

Can't help it, grew up sitting between my Dad's knees working a yoke.....
 
1Tracker said:
OK Vance, that's all well and good, but I'm not drinking the Kool aid on this one.

Mr Fosset was one of the most reknown aviators of our time; his aircraft goes down in a finite area, and not even NASA can detect the crash site? What with all of today's technology I would suspect that it could be found by now, even in the Nevada desert. Guess I'll have to go plan another adventure based on this, and that guy that bailed out in the '70's....
Click to expand...

Unfortunately all our technology is not that precise. We can find things if we know where to look. Even with a 4 digit grid it is a daunting and tireless task. Unfortunately the search area is much larger than that.

H
 
The flip side to experience, technology, and all the rest is that it breed complacency, especially for "routine" or "minor" activities. He was just going up for a very short flight - maybe he forgot to activate the transponder (or change the batteries, or verify that it was working, or however the gizmo works). Maybe he didn't toss in survival gear that day, or maybe he used up the water on a previous flight. The swiss cheese effect is always in play - many unlikely events lining up to create a hugely improbable mess.

There are plenty of minor topographical features that could conceal a small plane crash from an aerial search. Add that possibility to searcher fatigue from looking at a rather constant landscape. Even satellite pictures wouldn't be too useful (at least images at non-classified resolutions).

I don't see a whole lot of benefit for mysteriously disappearing. He's not going to be able to continue adventuring if he's hiding out (at least publicly pursuing aviation records - plenty of nice remote jungles and mountains to get lost in!). I don't <think> he was in any sort of financial trouble or any other situation that would have made an insurance settlement attractive.

I will agree that he probably does have the necessary skill, resources, and daring to fall off the map if he wanted to.
 
It was interesting that the Wikipedia article said that within about a week the Fossett search turned up 8 previously unknown crash sites, some decades old. I'd think at least some of these would have been discovered long ago, what with planes flying over them, satellite photography, etc.
 
That's true Jerseytex7 if he was flying a tail dragger.

I think I'm being too vague for the non flying folks. If one takes off from an airport, one has a flight plan filed. It states where you are leaving from, your heading/direction you intend to fly, and destination/landing. If the rescue folks out there already over flew Fossett's original FP and saw nothing, then he was flying true to his FP. Note to self, reason for always flying your filed FP....

Ok, who knows the size of the area/terrain where Fosset was flying over? Size of area searched?
 
1tracker,

Back about 21 years ago, I was on a little "desert jaunt" with some of my other SOF compadres. We were "hiking" along the eastern edge of a well-known valley that is used quite often in "RED FLAG" exercises. While moving along, I stumbled upon...almost literally...part of an F-15 that was destroyed in a mid-air collision with another aircraft over two years before. It had never been found...and this was in the Nevada high desert. We picked up some of the classified gear and hauled it out, and marked the location of the rest so we could report when we returned to Nellis AFB. So, my point is, things can get lost in the desert, and be difficult to find.

Ron
 
The funny thing about satellite photography and such. Its not so much the fact we get 1 inch resolution. Its where do you point the camera. There is so much to look at unless you have a pretty small area to look at, it gets exponentially harder to find as you increase surface area.
 
Mtn Hawk said:
It was interesting that the Wikipedia article said that within about a week the Fossett search turned up 8 previously unknown crash sites, some decades old. I'd think at least some of these would have been discovered long ago, what with planes flying over them, satellite photography, etc.
Click to expand...

My point exactly!:rolleyes: A fresh aircraft crash is going to scar the surface of the terrain, however slightly, even if it did a header:eek: You'd think with all of Fosset's previous stunts/adventures that someone he 'knew' higher up in NASA or such would've pulled out their 'key' and unlocked the Big Magnifying Glass in the Sky for his family:confused: Guess you find out who your friends are when you get lost or you have to make an 'unscheduled landing':yawn:

Makes me wonder about all this Govt' propaganda about 'we can read your license plate from Space' crap. Yeah, sure, prove it, go find the Fosset crash is all I gotta say to those clowns:jerkit:

I just feel like it'll take some hikers out bushwhacking to come across it is all. Guess you know what I'd do if I hit the lottery:D
 
1tracker & All,

We wish we actually had the number of imagery satellites that everyone thinks we have. That only exists in Clancy's fiction and in the movies. And moving a satellite in any orbit to find something is not the way they portrayed it in "Enemy of the State."

Ron
 
I don't know about the particular desert Fossett was flying over; however, I've got to say that the American Southwest has plenty of topography where, even with IR gear, even with a satellite, you'd have to get pretty lucky to get line-of-sight on anything--plane, man, drug jeep, band of Apache renegades--anything. Just as sort of an idea, this is a picture from the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona--among the favored hangouts of Geronimo and Cochise (the latter of whom has never been found):

http://www.amwest-travel.com/images/chiricahua05.jpg

I look at that topography, and I ask myself two questions:

1. How would I like to have had the job of tracking down one or two dozen Apaches in that territory in the late 19th Century, on horseback--where they were the ones who had grown up in the area, and knew it like you knew your backyard as a kid?

2. How would I like to try to find somebody in that territory, even now, even with a helicopter and infrared technology?

I imagine that if Fossett went down into terrain even vaguely like that (again, I know, he was probably a state or more away, but you get the idea), wreckage and remains might not get found for a millennium.
 
Ron53 said:
1tracker & All,

We wish we actually had the number of imagery satellites that everyone thinks we have. That only exists in Clancy's fiction and in the movies. And moving a satellite in any orbit to find something is not the way they portrayed it in "Enemy of the State."

Ron
Click to expand...

Too true; I was doing a 6-month tour down in Ecuador (back in 97) and a side job we conducted were SAR missions for civilian aircraft that would go down in the upper basin of the Amazon head-waters. Do you want to know how much of that area has NEVER been mapped via satellite????? We had to special order a few maps to cover a few certain areas and it was still just a fraction of the white space that was still on most our maps. Sure, it's a "small world", but it's still a big-ass planet!!

ROCK6
 
I am a volunteer observer for WSDOT/WASAR and have been trained to look for crash sites. It is not as easy as it sounds. Yes all aricraft carry an ELT yet like all electronic devices it can fail under the right circumstances. Addtionally small aircraft do burn and when they do the wreckage is usally reduced to a small pile of blackened and burned metal. The only part that is typically left is the tail section. Additioanlly the ELT get burned up in the process and fails to perform as advertised.

We had a twin engine aircraft crash that occured in mountainous terrain back in early 2006. The search lasted for nearly a week was conducted in near blizzard conditions at times. At one point our snowcat passed within maybe 100 ft of the crash. Approxametly six months later the crash site was found by two forrest service employees who were checking out a deactivated logging road. they were not looking for an airplane or it's crash site. From the crash reconstruction the aircraft was under full power and in a nearly straight down dive when it made contact with the ground. The aircraft created a deep but compact crater and the aircraft compacted itself quite nicely into the ground. Almost like it made a hole and pulled it closed behind itself. I have seen the pics of the plane (pre crash), the crash site and the parts that were removed from the ground. Pretty hard to believe it was an airplane at one time.

Needless to say the probibility of detection even under ideal conditions is low.
 
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