Help Find Steve Fossett

An anonymous reader invites us to join in the hunt for the missing Steve Fossett using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. DigitalGlobe, one of Google's imaging partners, has acquired new high-resolution satellite imagery of the area where Fossett disappeared on Monday. The public can now go through this imagery and quickly flag any images that might contain Fossett's plane. Flagged images will receive further review by search and rescue experts.

Comments

Does this really improve the odds of finding him?

[jesco]

I suppose there are already trained people looking at the images. From the Police, Fire-Department, or whatever organization handles these kinds of emergencies in Nevada. I stress the word trained because the satellite data definetely needs experienced eyes to look out for the right stuff.

The article starts by explaining what to look for on these images. This is good, but to substitute for experience in looking at such images.

Not all missing persons can be seen from space

[searchr]

To be fair, most missing persons are hiding in bus terminals and seedy motels. Even if it sadly takes someone of celebrity, even someone whose personal hobby is to put themselves into ridiculous danger, to develop a new form of distributed wetware computing, it's still for the better.

Maybe if someone had thought of this earlier, that unlucky family in Oregon wouldn't have been stranded in their car for a week. Or maybe, now there's a new option for the next time that does happen.

Forget SETI-at-Home. I'd much rather play "FindTheLostPeople-at-Home".

Re:Found a plane...

[Fullerene]

The scale make it a little bit small, but I think it is exactly the sort of thing that they are telling us to report to them. Contact the HIT requestor via Amazon perhaps?

Looks like a plane to me too.

Mod Parent Up

[Nasarius]

I'd say that's a hit. The object matches the dimensions of a Super Decathlon, according to Google Earth.

Great use of the technology, but...

[sdo1]

This is a very good use of the technology. I hope this works if for no other reason than to bring closure to his family if he hasn't survived.

My problem is the way they've got the web page set up. Every time I submit a new "HIT", I have to scroll all the way down the page again to see the next image. It's great that they have a "primer" a the top, but I've done a couple hundred now... I don't need to keep seeing that over and over again. Just cut to the chase and show me the next picture to examine.

Also, looking at the Google Earth swath that this is covering, I can't help but think that he might be outside of that. Can anyone comment? Or do they know "if he's anywhere, he's in that area."?

-S

Re:Does this really improve the odds of finding hi

[timeOday]

Seriously, though, can't computers do this sort of thing more efficiently?

Nope. The govt. has spent millions or billions on this problem over the years, but they still employ analysts to do it manually for the most part.

What, you thought there was no interesting CS research left to do?

What do we do if we find a plane????

[sd.fhasldff]

Ok, so what do we do if we find a plane just browsing in Google Earth? (way more efficient than refreshing the webpage).

38 7'34.00"N, 11929'4.81"W

Much more fuzzy than the AC plane, so this is probably nothing, but the size and shape is about right (a bit shorter, but of the plane is angled, it could easily show up shorter).

walking into the light

[Original Replica]

True, it could be a publicity stunt. But if it isn't intentional, then he's dead. He had enough experience to know to have an ELT/EPRIB on his plane. If he didn't activate it when he went down, it's because he was too injured to flip a switch to turn it on. Id the wreck was bad enough to break his ELT/EPRIB, then he didn't stand a chance.://www.nctackle.com/acraq406mhzg1.html http://www.avionix.com/store/elt.html

Quite ironic....

[thrill12]

...as Steve Fossett originally set out to take this journey to find a flat and long enough place to do his world land-speed record. Now Google has high-resolution imagery of the whole place, which makes the whole undertaking a bit obsolete in retrospect ?

I think I found something...

[Backyard Billy]

38 3'24.02"N 11914'56.55"W It looks like a plane, it's about 20 ft in length and has a 23-24 ft wingspan. I don't know how to contact them but if anyone here can communicate with them, please do. Don't forget to credit me if it turns out to be his plane.

Re:Like who?

[ejito]

They found SIX separate undocumented plane crash sites while searching for Fosset... why is it they can find these plane crashes while searching for Fosset, but couldn't find any of those before hand?

It's also quite illogical to ask "who" didn't get attention -- if they got attention, then we'd know who they were.

Re:Like who?

[zippthorne]

You can't look for people if you don't even know they're missing. If they were flying below the radar (not hard to do in the mountains), filed no flight plans, and left behind no one who cared about them enough to notice they're missing, then how exactly were the rescue agencies supposed to find them?

Further, if they were doing all those things, what're the odds the undocumented wreckage contains remains of undocumented would-be workers or non-medicinal pharmaceuticals?