Slashdot Mirror
Fossett's Plane Found
otter42 writes "Sadly, it looks as if all those crazies claiming Steve Fossett was still alive were wrong after all. The NY Times has the confirmation that wreckage of Fossett's Bellanca Citabria was found. Now it's up to the NTSB to tell us why this happened, although, statistically, dollars to donuts it was engine/fuel-related."
My condolences to the family.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
No body was found, and was purportedly "eaten by animals". Conspiracy theories live on!
Steve, being a sailplane pilot would have less trouble with engine issues than most power pilots. And on the lea side of the Sierras you can glide an very long distance east provided the rotor turbulence does not get you.
Last I heard, they were saying he appeared to have hiked at least a half kilometer from the crash site, to where his cash and ID were found.
This isn't to say that he isn't dead now, or that someone else found the crash site and (for reasons unexplained) took his ID and a grand in cash from it, then hid them where the hiker later found them, but the simplest explanation is that he survived the crash.
So the fact that they found the plane does not automatically make anyone claiming he is alive "crazy".
--MarkusQ
At that high an altitude, if you get clouds/ fog, you can run into a mountain at 10,000 feet, even if you're a good pilot ( who forgot to check his map).
NTSB said that the wreckage looked like high velocity impact, with little chance of survival.
I'd bet Pilot Error before anything else.
It's not like he's a famous DJ or something...
I don't know what it is but the end result looks like controlled flight into the ground.
Fossett was a very good pilot. An engine failure at altitude would have given him enough time to send out a distress call unless he was very close the ground when it happened. So maybe but it could have been any number of things. From the report of the crash it sounds like it hit hard and fast.
For the family this is probably a relief since now they can have some closure hopefully.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Now it's up to the NTSB to tell us why this happened, although, statistically, dollars to donuts it was engine/fuel-related.
Dollars to donuts the CRASH was gravity related...the engine/fuel is just a side problem!
What are the random internet nutcases right about anymore?
Test your net with Netalyzr
It took them this long to find the plane because they had to fake up a wreck!
In relation to the search we had on Slashdot some time ago, I wonder where he was. I remember looking all over trying to report whatever I could.
Also, unless it's changed, I don't think the nay-sayers are wrong yet. They found his plane but IIRC they have not found a body.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Is it just me or does the wife seem really really indifferent. Here is the possbility her husband's remains have been found, and she's "monitoring the situation"? The hell? Its not a weather system! Then again, I can't begin to imagine what she went through, so maybe this is an attempt on her part to keep her hopes from getting too high. I dunno, but really, does anyone else get this vibe?
It wasn't a survivable accident, according to all the news reports I've seen. Who is claiming that he hiked a half kilometer from the site?
That is my theory anyway.
They're saying that the damage looks like he flew straight into the side of the mountain and that it was extremely unlikely that it was a survivable impact.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/02/steve.fossett.search/index.html
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
The day Steve Fossett was lost I was driving from San Francisco
to Las Vegas by way of Barstow. Just after Barstow we entered one of those huge desert storm systems, a line of thunderheads
stretching North and South, and all of a sudden it rained so hard
and the wind blew so hard that it was hard controlling the car,
even when we slowed to 20 MPH. Soon after we left the storm, I
heard about the disappearance of Steve Fossett on the radio.
I have been convinced ever since that moment that that storm
killed him. I cannot see how a light aircraft could have flown
through it, and yet it came up pretty suddenly. Looking at the
map, I might still be right.
As mentioned in another post, as best as I can tell from the news articles, this is a Google Earth view of the area he went down. The Minaret Lake area is where the hiker found his ID and money, and the Minaret Peak is near where his plane hit.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I remember a short time after the crash google posted fresh satellite photos of that region. Has anyone checked google's photos vs where the crash was found? Could we even have seen it?
that someone else found the crash site and (for reasons unexplained) took his ID and a grand in cash from it, then hid them where the hiker later found them
My guess would be that "someone" would have been something like a raccoon or a buzzard.
I think it is becoming clearer that Fossett survived the crash, and was shortly adopted by a bear, and is currently living in a cave, having forgotten his human status due to traumatic brain injury.
Maybe you need to stop being so dismissive of people who think he is still alive.
It's an all-too-common occurrence in aviation. It even occurs to big, commercial flights. For example, Eastern Airlines flight 401 (in 1972).
By all accounts his plane was equipped with an ELT and a radio. Presumably he would have used one or both if an engine failure or other mechanical problem occurred and he had some time while gliding.
Summary:
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The reports are not saying that he hiked that distance, but that his ID was found that distance away from the crash site. In an area with plenty of wildlife, there are many other ways his ID could have been transported that distance, besides him surviving the initial crash.
I, like many of us, participated in that mechanical turk thing a few days after the crash to try to find his airplane in satellite photos. Did we cover that area? I kind of hope not.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Shes worked through them and moved on.
My guess would be that "someone" would have been something like a raccoon or a buzzard.
That certainly explains why when I'm killing rats and spiders they keep dropping gold and broadswords.
For the conspiracy crazies I mean. No human remains have been found. Clothing found at some distance from the wreckage. Enough to keep atleast 4 documentaries and a couple of movies coming.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I think it happened because the wings were at an attitude that they could no longer provide lift.
There. I think the cause has now been sufficiently genericized.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
As someone that's hiked that area long ago, when they mentioned the search would begin on the John Muir Trail between Dorothy and Shadow Lakes. That is a *heck* of a lot of VERY rugged forest area above 8000ft. It's not like there's a long snow-free time up there, or a whole lot of people at any given time either.
That they were able to find the wreckage is awesome. That's one great reason why we pay taxes people.
Prior searches focused on land east of the Glass Mountains. Another *huge* area.
As an FYI, the area has all kinds of omnivores. I can't see how a pilot could survive that either. There's no place to land a plane! Let's say he does the TV-movie thing and tried some kind of bail out. Bailing out, much less walking out without intimate knowledge of the area are both very low probability events in that region.
You guys should get out more, especially the conspiracy nuts. It's a beautiful area of our country. If that's too far away, visit a nearby National Park.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Rusty Aimer, chief executive of Aviation Experts
I hope this guy doesn't own a gun... get it?
I remember that about 25 years ago in Alaska we had a number of cases where the Citabria would crash because a wing came off. (And the Citabria was supposed to be aerobatic-certified aircraft. It just wasn't rugged enough for bush flying.) As I understand it, an AD was issued that should have corrected all the defects, but just knowing the problem existed is enough to dismiss early conclusions as to the reason behind the crash.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
"Now it's up to the NTSB to tell us why this happened[...]"
Why does the public need to be informed of the cause of a private man's private plane malfunctioning? It's not a public matter, it should remain private. If Fossett's family wants to know the cause, they are free to investigate, and obliged not to make this a public matter.
Although it greatly diminishes it.
Not easy to fly without a plane, you know?
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
bears
Would be interesting to go back over the relevant satellite and other aerial pics and try to see why the wreckage was missed back then.. or did the pics not cover that area?
Images of Grand Theft Airplane: Inyo National Forest. Poor dude getting jacked at 10,000 ft.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I saw this in the Chicago Tribune (and submitted it to slashdot, still pending) =/
There are links from the AP, UPI, the Salt Lake City paper; the news is all over. Why does the summary link to an international paper and a snarky British IT rag (the Register)?
I mean, if it's a story about something they found in Antarctica then IHT is a good link. If it's something about a British hacker then El Reg is a good link. If it's about Australia then an Australian paper os a good link.
Google News has this on its front page; since this news item is seemingly in every newspaper in the world right now, perhaps that's a good link.
Hell, even Fox is better link than IHT or the Register on this story, and it's on their front page like everyone else.
Do the submitters work for IHT and the Register or something?
Free Martian Whores!
It's also possible the crash could have flung possessions.
Earth sucks.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Engine failure, trying to control a landing, realized the impossibility due to the mountains, saw the lake, last ditch effort to survive by jumping.
It's a thought.
IF it was an accident (which it most probably is).
Conspiracy theorists can just postulate that he parachuted off the plane and is living somewhere.
From TFA: "Mammoth Lakes is about 10,000 feet, or 30,400 meters, above sea level "
30.4 kilo-meters above sea level? Boy, I surely hope the lake isn't in the fly path of commercial airliners.. or x-prize space vehicles..
Last I heard, they were saying he appeared to have hiked at least a half kilometer from the crash site, to where his cash and ID were found.
I saw several accounts, authorities say it was a "hard crash" as in "smashed into the side of a mountain at full speed" and that there is no chance whatever that he survived the carsh.
Free Martian Whores!
terrible, I'm sorry to hear it. Condolences.
On another note, that summary is terrible - "crazies," "dollars to donuts" - someone is DEAD and this is how it is reported? "It's been a willy nilly day, but Bernie Mac has died. I'm betting two shakes of a corn snake that it was related to a pre-existing condition - TALLY HO!"
Mammoth Lakes is about 10,000 feet, or 30,400 meters, above sea level, and snow makes already difficult terrain largely impassable and could bury plane wreckage.
amelia earhart
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Engine/Fuel related? I kind of doubt it. I know the area. If the plane's engine quite at that altitude he could had still landed at Manmoth airport. He had more then a mile of elevation above the valley floor and the distance was not great. Even if not at the airport there was a road within WALKING distance of the crash site.
I've flown a Citobria they are very strong plans and can be put down on a very short space and crash landed on a few hundred feet of road way.
I strongly suspect that something else happened either for some reason he did not see the mountain. That would mean he fell ill while flying or some of the airplane's structure or control system broke in flight.
In any case if the structur and control system was intact, the pilot was awake and in control and the engine was dead the plan would have been aimed at the "best" landing site even if that was a two lane mountain road.
In the last year, I've asked several private pilots what they thought had happened to Steve Fossett, and every single one of them said the same thing: they thought he was flying in a box canyon or over a mountain range and experienced sudden wind shear. (Do a Google search and look up the causes/effects.)
Basically, wind shear can push a small aircraft into a dive -- especially over a mountain range or in a canyon -- so fast that a pilot has almost no time to react.
However, if he flew straight into a mountain, then the visibility must've been poor (as another post mentioned above, he may have run into a sudden storm), and he mis-judged his altitude.
(I'd also like to ask the usual idiots to quit making jokes about his death -- I have friends who knew the man personally and participated in the search, and stuff like this pisses me off. He was a human being who was liked by quite a few people, so knock off this juvenile shit.)
FTA:
Two authors listed for this, and I would hope someone, besides me, proofread the thing.
Why would I trust anything coming from the mainstream media about politics, science, or anything else?
Same as most plane crashes...... Gravity.
On a more serious note, at least his family will have some closure now that the plane has been found and can have a proper burial.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
Uh-huh... He's uhhh alive and right here, yeah yeah - love me tender baby - Steve uhhh Fosset is right didiyo-here with me y'all - rocking. Uh uh, yeah. Everybody loves the king, yeah. Heartbreak hotel, wooh.
Now got to go... rock'n roll time. Yeah.
So he died instantly, and yet no body was found... Two explanations. Either animals got to it (very messy and leaves a lot of evidence) or he wasn't in the plane when it crashed...
Do away with our corrupt tax code. Support the Fair Tax
Haven't found a body. The myth lives on (for at least another day)
This is not Stuff That Matters to Nerds.
Bad Slashdot. Bad.
My 'Simpler still' was still simpler.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
From the article:
Mammoth Lakes is about 10,000 feet, or 30,400 meters, above sea level
That should be "or about 3,000 meters". Unless the conversion error was the other way, and Mammoth Lakes is at 100,000 feet (literally in the stratosphere), which seems rather unlikely.
If it were exactly 10,000 feet, the metric conversion would be 3048.006 meters.
wouldn't be too far fetched for his carcass to have been carried a a ways from the crash site by a bear/coyote/wolf etc before being eaten either. From the shape his plane was in, I doubt he survived it at all, let alone enough to go on a hike.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I wonder whether mandatory crash beacons would be of any benefit in cases like this? Sure it wouldn't save the pilot, but it would be easier to locate the crashed vehicle. I am thinking of a $1000 box that combines GPS and an emergency transmission beacon that can either be activated manually or after sudden G-spike?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Mammoth Lakes, CA
Week of Sept 2, 2007
No precipitation.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMMH/2007/9/3/WeeklyHistory.html
See the radar loop from that date by using the link in the Radar Archive box near the bottom-right of this page:
http://www.wunderground.com/radar/radblast.asp?ID=HNX®ion=c1&lat=37.65124893&lon=-118.98217010&label=Mammoth%20Lakes%2C%20CA
Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
It's equally possible he did have a parachute, but dodn't survive walking out of the mountains. That's a different skill-set after all. However, the fact that his cash and ID were found close to the plane makes it unlikely.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Messy? A lot of evidence? This happened OVER A YEAR AGO. If you expect there to be a lot of evidence remaining after animals have had a year to work the crash site over, you haven't spent enough time outside.
Flesh, bone, even blood would be cleaned up after a year out in the elements.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
IANAL
However I am a pilot and as such, I will take your bet.
A man who has flown solo around the world is less likely to mess up on fuel than the pilots who bump fuel exhaustion up as a statistic (we call them doctors). The man was a pilot not a doctor who is going to go die in his Bonanza (the V tailed doctor killer most likely).
I still consider that he may have intentionally killed himself in his plane. This was my guess at the time as to what happened.
There is the possibility that if he hit IFR he decided not to trust his instruments. Again this kills less experienced pilots a lot more often (ala Kennedy). So this is also not likely.
He could have had a medical issue and been dead/incapacitated before he hit the mountain. Old guy, yeah, I can see this one.
Engine failure during normal use is not that common. Also if you are well trained neither this nor a fuel emergency stands that great a chance of killing you (depending on where you are). In the case of this happening to a well seasoned pilot the 1st place that they will decide to land is NOT THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN!
Weather? Maybe but unlikely. Unless he had no experience as a mountain pilot (doubtful). This is still possible as mountains can be unfriendly.
Someone at work told me about the plane being found - I asked "Whose?" and they said, "you know, that millionaire that flys around the world in hor air balloons" to which I replied "Oh, Richard Branson!" True story.
Or they haven't pried open the wreckage enough to find parts.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Right, based on the NOTAM the center of the no-fly zone is at 37.658889N,119.125556W.
Pictures 1 and 2 in this series of photos clearly show burnt wood around the crash site. So either a forest fire burnt the area recently, or more likely, the plane's fuel burnt after the crash. However, his money and ID cards were clearly not burnt, and no mention was made of his sweatshirt being burnt, so either he was ejected clear of the crash and escaped the fire (whether or not he lived), or he got away from the fire under his own power.
Better known as 318230.
by the "wreckage" ?
it says WRECKAGE OF THE PLANE has been found. not wreckage of steve fosset.
Read radical news here
I always thought it was spelled "Citaborea", as in Aerobatic spelled backwards... The wikipedia article says it's Airbatic spelled backwards, which... isn't even a word.
Apparently it was a new plane.
Silly me took the summary and article on it's word......It was a new Decathlon not the plane mentioned :/
Scratch the comment on old and bold the comments related to stress and aerobatics as that is the aerobatic model and the same as our aerobatic plane.
From the article: "Mammoth Lakes is about 10,000 feet, or 30,400 meters, above sea level..." And here I tought that the tallest mountain in the world was just a smidgen over 8000 meters. I wonder how the hiker managed without an oxygen mask. Or even better, a full spacesuit.
It's well known that randomly encountered bears will hop on you and take all your gold.
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2008/10/location_of_plane_wreck_of_steve_fo.html
.kml file and check it out. You can see the "box canyon" he likely flew into. Planes do a crappy job of out flying terrain (I'm a private pilot, I've seen this first hand). His luck may have simply run out.
Download the
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
That certainly explains why when I'm killing rats and spiders they keep dropping gold and broadswords.
The rats with broadswords I can live with, it's the wolves with chain mail items and all those boars without livers that really puzzles me.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Did you happen to catch this from the article linked in the Slashdot submission (at the time I read it, which was a bit after 4PM MDT)?
Seems to me TFA has a conversion factor a bit wrong. With as long as it's been up, I would have expected it to be corrected by now.
Unless I didn't get the memo that the meter has been redeclared such that there are 3.04 meters in a foot.
(Yeah, I know, they added an extra zero on the end by accident, but it sounds more amusing to consider something that absurd.)
He who has no
According to this post it doesn't look like we were looking in the right place:
"I was involved in the mturk search for Fossett last fall and saved all of those overlays we were using. None of the ones I saved cover the area where the Fossett items were recently discovered near Minaret Lake/Minaret Mine. All of the overhead imagery covered areas further to the north of Mammoth."
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Mammoth Lakes is about 10,000 feet, or 30,400 meters, above sea level, and snow makes already difficult terrain largely impassable and could bury plane wreckage.
I have had a long day, but isn't 10,000 ft equivalent to 3048 meters or 30,400 decimeters?
Still not sure why this is news though. I mean the headline could very easily be "Man presumed dead still dead."
Three words:
Generalissimo Francisco Franco
Bow-ties are cool.
I just saw a short snippet on CNN, it looks like they have found some small evidence of human remains. Details appear to be sketchy. I would assume blood and hair traces, perhaps bones fragments are all they'll ever find.
My prayers and blessings go out to his loved ones. I hope this can give them the closure they need.
ed duval the very last person
God knows what the mods are thinking such that this sentimental slush is "insightful".
Just heard they found body parts or bones as well. NBCTV news.....
Most General Aviation incidents are caused by engine/fuel related problems, which are usually caused by pilot error / poor pre-flight procedures.
There are several factors that could have been factors:
1) Hypoxia. The crash site is at 10,000 feet, which means he was probably flying higher. I don't know what time of day it was, but hypoxia is much more profound at night.
2) Loss of orientation. Flying around in terrain is not easy. Also, the terrain always wins. The first time I heard the news this morning, before they found the wreckage, I looked at that town in google earth. The first words out of my mouth were, "well, I can see the mountain he flew into." And, sure enough... I was right
3) Engine/Fuel - already mentioned. "Oh, it's just a short flight," are the deadliest words in aviation. I do a 100% pre-flight whether I park the plane for 5 hours of 5 minutes. You can never ever inspect too much. It's very common for experienced pilots to get lazy.
Link
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
On another note, as a pilot I'm now interested to try to fly a Citaboria. Hopefully without the same results Steve had though
It's spelled Citabria ('Airbatic' spelled backwards, supposedly it was named that on purpose as a play on 'aerobatic').
A Citabria is a fun plane to fly, a lot like a SuperCub. I've got a few hours in the type too. It's a fairly forgiving airplane to fly too, unless you stall/spin too close to the ground then you're screwed, so just don't ever do that.
My speculation on Steve's demise is that he probably had a catastrophic medical malfunction like a stroke or heart attack right before he augered the plane into the mountain. We'll probably never know, since the wildlife made a meal out of his body, and in a day or two all they'll find of him is perhaps a few gnawed bones.
dammit, I misspelled Citabria in the subject line.
Nuts! Dang typos.
That's been found, too
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
True. It just seems like they are saying. "There isn't a body in the wreck." not "We have not found a body."
/.
But I could have misunderstood. Oh wait. This is
You idiot. They said there wasn't a body in the plane... </end fake rant>
Do away with our corrupt tax code. Support the Fair Tax
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/02/steve.fossett.search/index.html MAMMOTH LAKES, California (CNN) -- A small amount of human remains has been found in the wreckage of the plane that adventurer Steve Fossett was flying when he disappeared last year, a National Transportation Safety Board official said Thursday.
So, what, you're waiting for a bit of his teeth to be found, the bits that the coyotes didn't eat?
Apparently a few human remains were found, see http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE4919BA20081002
As the poster of this comment, I am officially eating crow. It seemed impossible, but now, we DO have the thousand pounds of steel and airplane seat bits; this is not a hoax.
Om nom nom nom nom nom - hhhhhhaaatttt....
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
it's "lose" ... L-O-S-E Aggghhhh!
Sorry, it's like the 5th time today I've seen that bloody misspelling.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Seems I spoke too soon. The crash was at high speed, caused by, as another /.er so adroitly put it, a cumulus-granite cloud at 10,100'. This most likely eliminates engine/fuel related issues, as as a general rule when that big pinwheel on the front goes from driving to being driven, 'da plane don't fly so fast.
However, airframe or other controls-related problems are very unlikely. As a general rule, airplanes just don't break anymore. The NTSB has identified the odds of a bonafide engine failure (NOT engine-related, which is usually pilot-error of engine management) at something like 1:200,000 hours. IIRC from a Wings Weekend when a FAA accident examiner held a seminar on aircraft accidents and incident, engine/fuel issues make up 80-90% of accidents.
More likely-- and this is complete guesswork-- more likely Fossett was:
A) flying along in a cloud (unlikely: at that age, he would not have been crazy enough to simply fly into a cloud because it was there, forgetting that he was in the mountains. Old pilots, bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots...);
B) a sudden cloud formed around him and he became disoriented and lost attitude or heading control (this can happen quite suddenly in mountains, as the pressure drop of a gust of wind flowing over the mountain can cause a cloud to temporarily form on the other side. Although it doesn't happen instantaneously, so I think this improbable);
C) he was flying relatively close to the ridge lines and got stuck in a descending part of a mountain wave and couldn't climb out of it in time, either through misjudgment or luck. Any normal piston engine's climbing performance would have greatly limited it at this altitude, as the engine would have been making only half-power or so. Looking at the terrain immediately around the site, this seems the most likely hypothesis. Especially since he hit a mountain at 10,100', and it seems that most obstacles in that region top out at somewhere between 10,000 and 10,800'. Ouch, dammit.
It all depends on the plane's orientation, I guess. If he were flying parallel to the mountain, perhaps he intended to be in the valley (canyon running) and just didn't quite get his turning radius right (depends on what they mean by "high speed" impact). If it were perpendicular to the ridge, he probably flew smack into it.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.