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Hikers May Have Found Fossett Items
An Anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting 'A weathered sweat shirt, cash and a pilot license with Fossett's name were found Tuesday near Mammoth Lakes, police Chief Randy Schienle said.' The license did not have a photo. '"We're not certain that it belongs to Steve Fossett, but it certainly has his name on the ID," Schienle said.'"
This always bothers me. I'd like to see once in the FARs (Federal Aviation Regulations) where it uses the word license.
It is a pilot CERTIFICATE not a license.
On another note, it'd be nice to see some closure for Fossett. I've met him a few times, and he's a great person. He's an equally amazing pilot.
some more info here
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fossett2-2008oct02,0,1608495.story
So our hoaxer forges 3 separate IDs, in one case getting all the original information that was on Fossett's FAA card, and adds $1005? That's one heck of a hoax. I suppose you could argue that's he's trying to get a reward from Fossett's rich widow for "finding" her husband's final resting place... but after he couldn't get ahold of the family's lawyers, he went to the police. Seems that would be the last thing a hoaxer would want to do, is get the police and authorities involved; I imagine forging federal IDs is a pretty serious offense. Doesn't make sense.
True, finding the contents of his wallet off on their own is odd... but animals are curious and like to chew on things, especially when they're hungry. In the middle of winter in the Sierra mountains, a bear or fox might decide that a leather wallet was better to eat than nothing and tear the wallet apart for a snack. Bears in particular will eat damn near anything, edible or not.
The other card and money are paper. Pilots licenses are made out of plastic. It wouldn't get wrinkled/dirty like a piece of paper.
Just for the record, FAA pilot information is public and it would be trivial to get all of the information that would appear on Fossett's pilot certificate. However, performing the actual forgery is well beyond simply finding that information, and this doesn't smell like a hoax to me. Also note that an FAA pilot certificate is not ID, or at least not photo ID, as it has no photo on it, just a name. In order to be valid it must be combined with government-issued photo ID. But it's still probably pretty harshly frowned upon to forge it.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Clearly, you've never seen a plane crash site up close..
Thump into a big mountain at 120km/hr and your stuff gets scattered over a remarkably wide area.
Contrary to what you see in the movies, the fireball is not inevitable (especially if the pilot turned off the gas before making that "unscheduled off-airport landing", or they crashed because of the second most common cause: running out of fuel)
It's funny both the slashdot summary and CNN note that the police said the pilot's license didn't have a photo.
For good reason. Pilots' licenses don't have photographs. I think the police there have never seen anything like it and are just plain perplexed.
From the Mammoth Times.
Yawn,I used Google Earth to visit the Minarets and Shadow Lake area. No blue and white trash pile evident to my untrained eye. Then perhaps the Google picture was pre accident 2006. Oh well.
New discovery revives search for Fossett
Wednesday, 01 October 2008
Shortly after noon today, Mono County Sheriff Search and Rescue teams will begin a search for the wreckage of lost air-adventurer Steve Fossett's plane, which went down in the California/Nevada area a year ago September. The search is based on discovery of a sweater and three of Fossett's aviation ID cards in the Minarets on Monday by Preston Morrow, a local hiker who works at Kittredge Sports. The search will begin on the John Muir Trail between Dorothy and Shadow Lakes. Prior searches focused on land east of the Glass Mountains.
The California Highway Patrol helicopter from Fresno will fly in the search teams.
Fossett was declared dead in Feburary of this year.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 October 2008 )
Source: http://www.mammothtimes.com/content/view/94652/1/
Have you been anywhere near Mammoth Lakes? Aside from the bears, you make no sense.
Maybe you are talking about Lake Tahoe or Mono Lake as this "lake", but that is crazy too.
Being stranded near Mammoth is tolerable in Sept, but you'd be screwed for most of the year. I've encountered snow there in July.
Search crews have found some wreckage, apparently. No link because it's only a banner on CNN's website.
Even more expensive than that 'cos they've faked the wreckage of a small plane near where the other stuff was found.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
They did find wreckage nearby where these hikers found these artifacts:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gfmXbQn-RFLHSjd8_s23ytiM6OVAD93I5P5O0
>They've already found wreckage [bloomberg.com], so this is basically a sure thing
Having actually searched for, and found, missing persons and aircraft wreckage on the ground in that general location in the Sierras, I can tell you that there are many more undiscovered crash sites than you might believe. The odds are good that it could be any of dozens of aircraft that have gone missing in recent years, including the one that carried Fossett, but not good enough to be a 'sure thing'. This is why they have to go in and make sure.
The license did not have a photo. "We're not certain that it belongs to Steve Fossett, but it certainly has his name on the ID,"...
Oh yeah we all have "Steve Fosset" written in our pilot licenses, specially the ones that like to go hiking.
Why don't these self-proclaimed journalists don't do some research instead of coping and pasting the Reuters cable?
Do all pilot licenses have a photo?
Did his license had a photo?
Is it in fact a pilot license or they are not sure?
Much more likely to have died of injuries after crawling out of the wreckage then to have been eaten by a predator. Scavenger, much more likely, but still probably not.
tm
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> Just for the record, FAA pilot information is public and it would be trivial to get all of the information that would appear on Fossett's pilot certificate.
You can opt out of making the information public, though it looks like Fossett didn't opt out. However, the certificate number isn't public.
A061278400JAMES STEPHEN FOSSETT 401 S LA SALLE ST STE 200 CHICAGO IL 60605-2999 GL2022007022008