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Steve Fossett Declared Dead
Parallax Blue writes "Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who risked his life seeking to set records in high-tech balloons, gliders and jets, was declared dead Friday, 5 months after he vanished while flying in an ordinary small plane. The self-made business tycoon, who in 2002 became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon, was last seen Sept. 3 after taking off in a single-engine plane from an airstrip near Yerington, Nev., heading toward Bishop, Calif. He was 63."
From the sounds of it, Steve's wife wanted his last will and testament read and put into effect, and that's what prompted the ruling in the first place. CNN reported that "Judge Jeffrey Malak made the ruling after an emotional presentation from Fossett's wife of 38 years, Peggy, who also asked that her husband's will be entered into probate."
I came, I saw, She conquered.
If he was a gangster rapper you'd see people coming up with faked death theories with weird patterns in numbers related to his disappearance to give us all hope...
Unfortunately he was no gangster rapper, only a simple average white billionaire..
You just got troll'd!
This is no tragedy; we should be celebrating this man's life. We should all be as lucky to live such a full life, and die as old men under such circumstances. When most reach old age, they give up on life entirely. When your body begins to fail, it takes real courage to tempt fate on a regular basis.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
It amazes me, especially living in the area of endless urbania that is the Greater L.A. area, that there are still uninhabited areas so vast that a plane could crash and not be found after exhaustive searching with high-tech equipment.
Then again, there is an almost-intact crashed plane near the western (Highway 190) entrance to Death Valley, near Towne Pass, that's in plain view of the highway yet almost impossible to see unless you know what you are looking for. It crashed in the 50s; it was part of a CIA mission and lost power over the Amargosa Valley. The crew bailed out near Furnace Creek, if my memory serves me correctly, then the plane crashed in the Panamint Range to the west.
Some pics from someone who hiked to the site: http://rides.webshots.com/album/292358776FDMVRo
After seeing that on one of my outings, Fossett's plight isn't so incredible to me. Sucks to be him, but he certainly didn't live a hard knocks life prior to his demise.
Whoever tagged this article "whogivesafuck" should turn in their human card at the door. Sure, you may not have known this guy personally, but that tag is in really poor taste. How would you like it if after someone you knew died, someone came up to you and said "he's dead. so what?".
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
This tag marks a new low on slashdot.
Maybe the tagger is just jealous, because this man did the right thing with all his money. Instead of attending stupid show-off parties, he used his money to make his dreams become reality.
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
Why is Fossett's wife in a rush to declare that her husband is dead?
It seems a lot of people who are known for risking their lives are dying doing pretty normal things... a man who rides high-tech experimental aircraft to world records died crashing a normal single-engine plane. An adventurer who spent his time mostly around horribly dangerous animals was killed by what was supposed to be a completely harmless stingray. There was another recent example I remember but I don't remember the specifics. It's kind of wierd, although I know there's no connections or anything
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
It would take very roughly 1,750,000,000,000 light single-engine airplanes to cover the dry-land area of this planet -- or 15,500,000,000 for Nevada. Yes, it's a very big place. Aerial searches that find nothing are not in the least uncommon. An FAA district office I visited in Denver some years back had a wall map showing the last known positions of over thirty aircraft just in Colorado. Even Ohio, the most uniformly populated state, has one or two. Like to try an expensive science-fair project? Make a full-size cardboard effigy of a crashed airplane, have someone place it in a random spot in an area of, say, 20 x 20 miles, then charter an airplane and look for it.
It's spooky, really, but I have to think that there'll be a Slashdot story in a few years about how his bones and his plane were found using new Google Maps Streetview - Desert Edition.
There is an organized project trying to do that, right now.
rj
While I don't give a fuck either, I think the sentiment being echoed by others is that if you really don't give a fuck, then just move on and go comment on another story. The fact that people go out of their way to declare emphatically that they don't care is a bit sociopathic.
It's a bit humbling to think that even in this day and age, it's still possible for a plane to disappear in the middle of one of the most advanced countries on the planet and the combined resources of governments and enthusiastic hobbiests cannot find any trace of it.