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Steve Fossett Missing
jd writes "Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling, the first person to fly around the world in a balloon, and possibly the record-holder for the highest-altitude glider flight, is missing in Nevada. He is reported to have taken off in a light aircraft last night and has not been seen since. As he had filed no flight plan, would-be rescuers have no idea where to even begin looking. The plane took off from a private airstrip on a ranch at the south end of Smith Valley in western Nevada."
Did he fly over Area 51 or somewhere he shouldn't have?
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I don't need no stinkin flight plan.
Aliens. Probably the same ones that took Earhart.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
The US Military denied claims that a UFO had been shot down last night over Area 51.
Find anything yet?
Nothing yet, sir.
Find anything yet?
Nothing yet, sir.
How about you?
We ain't found shit!
Then get off your ass and make a fortune and stop being a whiny little bitch. That might help.
Although the upcoming cold front is expected to create high winds this afternoon, conditions this morning were quite good. I hope that he was able to ditch in a survivable place, and pray for his safety.
That's where Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan ended up when he tried to fly from New York to California.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
well, it's obvious to me that he figured out where Jim Gray was, and liked the view...
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Perhaps he's in a secret valley somewhere, protected by a holographic screen, with other adventurers and industrialists, plotting a takeover of the world?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
way to lay the pimp hand down !!!!!
+5 Keeping it Real
I'd start looking on the ground.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Maybe he is trying to break the world record for the longest search party?
There have been some pretty intense wind/thunder/rain monsoons passing between South East California, South Western Nevada and Utah and North Arizona the past few days. If he hit one of those storm cells, he's a goner. On the other hand, there is a big chance he just parked his plane indoors and is sitting in a poker room on the Strip somewhere, lol.
"Apophis 2036 - Surf the Big One"
He's out in a single engine piston aircraft so if the motor went quiet, the only option would be to land.
In theory and from what I know of Nevada's geography, finding somewhere reasonable to put the plane down shouldn't be a big issue.
However, once down, he may be right up the middle of nowhere. You'd assume he'd just get on the radio but if it's an old Bellanca, there may be no battery power available, in a new Bellanca the fault that stopped the engine may also prevent the radio from working. Nevada's geography with raised ranges may block a radio signal in places and it may even be the case that he went out 'non-radio' as some pilots still do.
I do rather hope he's okay but the moral here is never go x-country without 'booking-out' first even if that means just telling your friend where you're going.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Fossett may have been the first to fly SOLO around the world, but Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager flew round the world non stop without refueling in 1986.
Which gives him a good shot at safely landing the plane in an emergency. Unfortunately, if he lands in the middle of the desert, he might have a very hard time getting back to civilization before his water runs out. Also: it doesn't matter how good a pilot he is, if there was serious mechanical failure on that plane during flight he would have had to bring it down. There is no option.
His biggest mistake: not filing that flight plan. Huge *huge* fuckup.
Be terribly ironic to see him die on a milkrun after surviving all the records he's set doing some very dangerous flying. It's as bad as Steve Irwin getting killed by a critter known for docility.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
For at least 72 hours after the last known contact.
In Nevada, his goods aren't up for taking until 90 days!
...and it should be known by now
Well it has to be warmed up properly. Otherwise there is a risk of chaifing!
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
As of 12:39 pm Nevada time, he still has 38:47:10 before he's overdue.
Voyager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager/ Was the first plane to fly around the world without refueling. He flew Global Flyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Flyer/ around the world later.
One of the other article says he took off flying a Citaborea, which means he was going up to do aerobatics because this is a quite slow airplane for anything else.... (NOTE: Citaborea means aerobatic spelled backwards). I do not remember him being an experienced aerobatic pilot, which is a considerably different skill than just being a pilot. Meaning, I feel I am a great pilot, but a not so good aerobatic pilot other than weather related recovery type turns. I would guess he probably got in a little over his head while doing aerobatics, and went down.
I hope this is not the case, but this type of thing is fairly common in the aerobatic world. Hence, the reason why they require the use of parachute(s)...
Last I saw him, some chick in a crotchless monkey suit had gotten him totally pissed and convinced him to rip the antenna off of his aircraft to roast wieners over the coals of The Man.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling
In 1986 Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan flew in Voyager around the world without refueling. Fossett was the first to fly around the world without refueling solo
The opinions expressed here are not mine, but those of these dang voices in my head.
Please explain to me why a pilot as experienced as Fossett does not file a flight plan - does not carry a beacon.
Nevada is not a giant dry lake bed.
As someone who has traversed just a tiny bit of the variety of off-highway terrain Nevada/Arizona/Utah/East California has to offer, I find it doubtful he could put it down safely. If he went due north, then it doesn't get any easier to land it.
Let's imagine for a minute he gets insanely lucky and lands without killing himself. He's exposed to some of the hottest, driest weather in the US. How much drinking water is in single-engine plane? How much water could he carry if he were crazy enough to consider walking out?
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
. . . from "The Silver State" to "Nevada: A Whole Lot of Nothing"
Personally, I enjoyed Nevada's wide open spaces - best star-gazing I've ever experienced.
But in this case, "A Whole Lot of Nothing" is going to make the searcher's jobs pretty difficult - lots of room to get lost out there (something else I enjoyed about my time in Nevada) - forever.
What?
Let's apply Occam's Razor here and say that most likely, he probably crashed somewhere.
That's what they WANT you to think
Accomplished pilot takes off from a remote airport without a flightplan and goes missing? Sounds like he killed himself.
No so smart after all. This is a big No No for any pilot. I think he is moving yellow cake for the NSA.
Suppose he was going for a new high-altitude record, and forgot to pack a small rocket for a de-orbit burn?
In other news... several residents of Nevada have reported overhearing a small voice making numerous requests: "Please draw me a sheep"
Here:
i ndex.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/04/fossett.missing/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6978818.stm
His profile is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2078591.stm
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
It's obvious that he isn't human at all.
It's just that his vacation time ran out.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citabria
First I heard it was "aerobatic" backwards.
I only read the linked article, it didn't say which Bellanca. Super Viking would have been a decent choice, but I'll check again for the linked articles.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Screw Lindy...When denied a permit for a transatlantic flight because your hand-built airplane (cost 900 dollars) is deemed unflyable, make the flight anyway, and then claim you got "lost."
The guy made the flight with a couple of candy bars and a bottle of water, and a fuel leak inside the cockpit which he knew about before he left, but didn't fix because he didn't want to miss his flight window.
It's that fine line between bravery and stupidity; he lived, so he was brave.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
This aircraft is "capable" of aerobatics - even inverted flight (it's main edge over the Decathalon), but it's really just an extremely rugged hi-wing tandem.
A great Bush plane actually, I wouldn't assume he was going up to do aerobatics based upon that.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I'm searching Google Earth for him right now. So far no luck but I will keep you all posted....
Humans are prone to extremely dumb mistakes. In fact, I'm making one at this exact moment.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a guy who's rich
Who flew off in a small airplane
Expecting not a hitch
The mate was a mighty flying man,
His exploits were all right.
Steve Fossett he let out that day
For a three hour flight, a three hour flight.
The weather started getting rough,
His flying ship was tossed,
He didn't pack his chute that day
His lunch it would be tossed, his lunch it would be tossed
The plane set down on the hot flat ground of this uncharted desert isle
With Fossett
Is he vulture stew,
A millionaire for his life,
All that money
Will not save him
Here on Fossett's Isle.
Also known as "Cumulus Granite"
A goal is a dream with a deadline
It looks like Fossett may have gone down the drain. Water we going to do about it!? If we want to find him we may have to tap all our resources.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
First of all, flight plans are not required unless you're flying on instruments.
Second, in a case like this, it really doesn't make much sense to file one, IMHO. From the sound of it, he was simply flying around looking at various dry lake beds. There was no set destination, nor even a set route probably. He was going to return right back to his home airport. This was essentially a local "sightseeing" flight, and I've never filed a flight plan for one of these, personally. Even if he did fill in a shell of flight plan, the only benefit would have maybe been mobilizing search and rescue a few hours earlier than they otherwise were. They still wouldn't have any better of an idea of where to find him if he had no predetermined path or destination.
Actually, even better than a flight plan for VFR pilots is to get flight following. It's surprising that he didn't at least get this. Maybe radar coverage out there is too spotty.
Also odd is that we apparently have to record of a distress call and/or an emergency transponder squawk. This indicates to me that, if he did have a problem in the air, it was so sudden and/or catastrophic that he didn't have time to send out a mayday. Or it could mean that he landed purposefully on one of these dry lake beds without any problems, but had a problem taking back off.
- Jeff
That's a first....a ghost reference to Wikipedia
A goal is a dream with a deadline
If you are going to get lost in the middle of nowhere, you need one of these.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Depending on the type of single engine aircraft he would have
2 to 5 hours of duration.
An article suggests that he told a friend that he would return by noon.
He left at 9 A.M.
If he only took enough fuel to get to his waypoint and return then
his total expected duration would be 3 hours.
This means his expected outbound waypoint should be within 1.5 hours
of departure.
If he's flying something like a cessna 170, his top speed is ~140 MPH.
If we calculate for 160 MPH to take into account either foolhardiness
or massive tail wind, his maximum distance should be in a circular radius
of 240 miles.
From that information he could be almost anywhere in Nevada.
He could be in California. Or he may have made it as far as
Arizona, Utah, Idaho, or Washington.
It would be easiest to find him by reading his day-timer,
checking his old phone messages, looking in his car, and phoning
everyone he knows (friends/family/recent business) and mapping
their positions. Perhaps his most frequent destinations from previous
flight plans would also help.
This should reduce the search area substantially and possibly give
some insights into what he may have been doing/thinking when he left.
There doesn't appear to be any mention of technical details
regarding aircraft type, fuel purchase, or his heading after takeoff.
He probably stopped in at burning man , took some happy pills and is just chillin' on the playa.
He was flying a Citabria, which can land pretty much anywhere, with or without it's engine running.. Most likely, he experienced some engine trouble and had to land in the desert. Hopefully he has water with him. It is surprising though that he wasn't able to send a radio distress call. The next possibility would be some medical emergency. Small planes don't break-up in the sky. The problem must be mechanical or medical. I had two engine failures in small planes, landing dead stick is no big deal. The Citabria touches down at 51mph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citabria)..
PGP public key at: http://keskydee.com/gil.asc
Fossett doesn't do anything without a fair bit of self-promotion. Call out the CSI team!
First, just who told the FAA that Fossett flew that plane out? I think he was done-in on the ground at the Hilton ranch, and is probably pushing up daisies near the compost heap. They dismantled his plane and hid it in an outbuilding far, far from the ranch.
Or maybe he died just the way a friend of mine died in a small plane so many years ago in his youth. Pilot didn't pay attention to the altimeter and the ground rose up to meet him as they neared the mountains.
his plane was running Linux...and nobody knew how to fix it...
Have you seen his wife!? Sheesh. She looks like his grandmother! I'd chew off my arm to get away from that! I bet he has been squirreling away cash in the Cayman Islands for a long time now.
you're looking for the 'Plain old text' menu item. It's right there at the bottom of the editing form. Yes, down a bit, that's it. Right next to the Preview button.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Maybe he went to Mexico to pick up a perfect replica of his plane made out of purified weed rezin, then there was a small fire onboard on his way back. I could imagine he would have lost his focus and could be a few more days...
Hope he's okay on a serious note.
jd writes "Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling,"
No he wasn't. That was Dick Rutan in Voyager. Fossett did it later in a jet aircraft.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
This guy has spent a lot of tax-payers dollars in getting him rescued. This is not the first time he has gone missing or in danger of his life. He should be funding his own rescue attempts.
cheers, Jeffery
I remember a long, long time a ago when I was taking drivers training that most car accidents occur withing 1 mile of where you live or were you start. I used to fly over Nevada many years ago while in the Air Force and there is much empty and rough land to search for him there so good luck for whoever is looking for him, God forbid, if he crashed.
I find it convenient to keep my interests... mobile. Anyway, I've had my fill of life on the ground. After spending much of this century pursuing the evils and pleasures the world has to offer -- after outliving three wives and two children... I find I've had quite enough of planet Earth.
The powers that be have been quite busy lately, falling over each other to position themselves for the game of the century, if not the millennium.
I've had a long time to make enemies. There are many governments, business interests, even religious leaders who would like to see me disappear. And I will grant them their wish soon enough... But before I do, I wish to make a small contribution -- a final gesture of goodwill toward the people of this little planet who've given -- from whom I've taken so much.
Short flight? Hmm...
3830'40.67"N
11912'59.09"W
is this the airstrip?
They're using their grammar skills there.
start looking in deserted mountain valleys in Colorado!
"no idea where to look"..
..and then we have everyone scurrying around here with ridiculous links to their favourite online mapping services thinking that's of any help.
What *IS* it with wealthy or tech guys when they don't have basic GPS tracking systems installed in their dangerous toys and hobbies?
What you need is something really simple.. "I am here... I am here.. I am $#%#%#" and updated as frequently as you'd like to afford the comms time.. it's not as if they can't afford it.. and now their life is on the line and too late to think "wish they had some way of knowing where I am.."
ridiculous oversight.
All the best to him of course.. and terrible.. but really.
. You'd assume he'd just get on the radio but if it's an old Bellanca, there may be no battery power available, in a new Bellanca the fault that stopped the engine may also prevent the radio from working.
Please don't post unless you know what you're talking about.
ALL civilian aircraft save military, experimental, and balloons have ELTs which are powered off a separate, self-contained battery. The system can be manually triggered if it wasn't triggered by an impact.
The ELTs are monitored via satellite (they'll stop monitoring the older ones around 2010 or thereabouts), so remoteness is irrelevant for signal detection. The geography and clear air probably make it a lot *easier* to spot, not harder...provided he didn't crash into a steep canyon. A search plane flying at high altitude over any reasonable flight paths should be able to detect the signal easily.
Given the man's personal worth, I would expect that he very well had an EPIRB device or a modern ELT (the older ones aren't very good.) Hell, I'd be amazed if he didn't have a satphone as well.
Please help metamoderate.
He is/was quite the adrenaline junkie, always trying to break this or that record by unconventional means. While I envy his spirit and colorful life, this should have been expected. Bless his family and hope for his safe return but expect a memorial to him someplace soon.
Bearing in mind the guy might be dead, I find it a bit distasteful we're laughing about it.
He may or may not have been stupid or suicidal or whatever, but for the sake of his family, friends etc, can we stop making cheap fucking jokes about it.
The one positive thing is that Civil Air Patrol is looking for him. They are well known for their ability to find things like this. Also, CAP members are volunteers which means that taxpayer money spent to find him is at a minimum. Basically the aircraft fuel and maintenance. CAP Cessna 182's don't cost a lot to operate.
Also, the ELT (emergency locater transmitter) didn't get set off. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. If he crashed hard enough, then the ELT would be damaged and not send the signal to the orbiting satellites. On the other hand, if he landed OK in the middle of the desert, maybe he is waiting a little bit to see if he needs to turn it on manually. As soon as he does, CAP will have him found in a couple of hours.
Hoping for the best...
He may or may not have been stupid or suicidal or whatever, but for the sake of his family, friends etc, can we stop making cheap fucking jokes about it.
But isn't this slashdot? What else is there to do?
Missing - Have you seen me?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Maybe he thought Burning Man was this week....
First post! (just in case I am...)
to fly a plane around the world non-stop without refueling was NOT Steve Fossett, it was Burt Rutan and Jeana Yeager in the Voyager that Dick Rutan designed and built. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I doubt that are spending this time browsing slashdot.
... or something like that, maybe. A stroke, whatever. That's all it would take to take it down. I hope not, though - I hope he's OK somewhere.
Maybe he got bored of flying in the real world and discovered that Google Earth has a flight simulator built into it.
Steve, its dinner time.
I'll be right up mom. Just let me land this plane in Chile.
Steve Erwin anniversary anyone?
Coincidence or plot by evil stingrays to target our attention-whore pseudo-celebrities?
Has anyone else noticed that this occurred on the anniversary of Irwin's death?
It just goes to show you that money does not equal brains as if you didn't already know. Just look at any politician! The plane either didn't have an ELT (Emergency Locater Transmitter) or it wasn't turned on. And he didn't file a flight plan. It's OK to be a bold pilot, and old, but stupidity comes with a cost especially if something goes wrong.
I do hope they find him alive.
So much for National Security. No flight plan filed?
People born then do "Just Croak".
I recon he's jolly lucky passing away while doing something he loved.
Check for snakes.
Don't joke, my brother-in-law is missing, presumed dead, in South America. I posted to backpacker, military, surfer and ex-pat forums who were a great help and even thought about posting here. But the crap I knew people would post - that his immediate family might read via searches - over rided any benefit that might be gained. Don't feel bad slashdotters but this isn't the place to come in a fixed-point crisis... although I'm sure many good people would offer help and assistance in wider emergencies.
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON A TURD MR KNOWITALL IDIOT
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Can we please stop paying attention to this man? He is in the news merely because he's rich and buys toys. This is not news. This is a rich man's self indulgence. With all of the things in this world that need to be fixed, why are we feeding the ego of someone who is not doing anything at all of value in this world. Riding in a balloon around the world? Jetting around? It is not important.
I guess you are no fan of the Darwin Awards.
He'll be back there coming from the other direction in a little while.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Anyone else feel like some sort of Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged stuff is going on?
First Jim Gray, now Steve Fossett. I'm wondering when Carmack is going to "try" his rocket and disappear as well.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Boo-hoo cry me a river. People die all the fucking time. Jokes are a means to both entertain, and relieve stress. Some people might be laughing out of malice or ignorance; but other might be using it as a way to relive a stressful (sad) thought. Get over your "everyone must be solemn and mourn" attitude, and worry about yourself.
If his family is reading Slashdot and expecting a codling hand and words of sympathy; they seriously are misguided and need to explore the internet more.
Why the fuck would you even consider coming to slashdot in a "time of crisis". You have to be a complete retard if you think a "geeky" news disscusion site is the right place to go to help solve your problem. Sorry about your brother-in-law, but frankly that's a problem to cry about somewhere else.
You might try cryaboutthings.com
In 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (the author of The Little Prince) took off on a routine mission and vanished. Rumours and speculations ran rampart, amongst which there was a talk of suicide and not wanting to be ever found. Over 50 years later the wreckage of his plane was found in a location very different from the route he was supposed to take, with no additional damage besides that caused by the crash (World War II was raging at the time, just FYI), adding credence to the suicide theory.
Hopefully, this will not be the case on this occasion.
Somone please BAN all these kids from using a computer please, also ban them from taking ficticious cheap humour from movies. If I hear one more insulting comment for the sake of some childish moron's cheap image GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
I'm going to donate some of my time to help finding him. The ability to help someone over the Internet is wonderful. However, the Amazon's mechanical Turk page (this one) refers to non-standard units like feet. I'm told I'll have to set the height on my GoogleEarth client at 1500 feet and that the aeroplane is 22 feet long, but this is like talking nonsense to me, as I can understand only metres (I'm from EU). I had to convert this, but I can't stop thinking that the page author makes the life of non-US volunteers a bit more difficult. Shouldn't important emergency-related webpages contain both the customary/local (feet) and standard (metres) units? Not that in this occasion this is of much importance (I just typed '1500 feet in metres' in Google), but I just wanted to raise this issue. What if you are in a life-or-death emergency situation and your ability to save someone depends on you understanding a non-standard unit that someone thought everyone would know about but in reality it is used only in some parts of the world out of custom? This problem of course also exists in many non-emergency situations... eg last time I got to England whenever I was asking locals where I could find a shop etc I had to deal with yards, and I had to get our my PDA to find out how far I should walk. With the global commerce and increasingly international communications, can't all countries agree to a single set of universal units and fund campaigns to help common people get accustomed to the standard units? Apart from language barriers, different sets of units really make intercultural communication harder than it needs to be.
I believe Mr. Fossett's last sight was of orange/yellow type mountain side. I am not sure he is dead. I know the word 'gorge' is WITH the orange/yellow mountain side. I have volunteered with police and FBI with my ability, more than once.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c147/funeraltime/FOSSIG.jpg
I found this with updated images from geo and google earth.
Yes that plane was there on the black and white (updated)image also, but not on the original satelite images so I've been intrigued with that one myself also.
I've not seen the follow up to that since it was first reported in the week. Can someone please clarify that image because its right on his most likely flight path.
Fuck Steve Fossett---and let him rot where he fell. Stupid cocksucker he is---too fucking idiotic to file a flight plan---too bad asshole!
To waste all these resources on some arrogant fucking prick like Fossett is unbelievable! The search has found SIX wrecks---some DECADES old---where the fuck was the interest for those lost souls?
Fuck Fossett---c'est la Vie!
did you see the latest report that maybe they found the crash site 20 mi west of Minden.
38.32148227001439,-118.6114948253157