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."

Comments

He's still kicking!

[sharp3]

No body was found, and was purportedly "eaten by animals". Conspiracy theories live on!

Re:He's still kicking!

[Ngarrang]

I'm not saying I think (or care) one way or another but it is conceivable he used a parachute...I mean...this is Steve Fossett after all.

So, maybe Fosset and DB Cooper are not kicking back a few drinks with Elvis on some lush pacific island paradise?

Re:He's still kicking!

[eln]

I think it's pretty obvious what happened here: Fossett was teleported out of his plane by the crew of a Starship from the future that used the "slingshot around the Sun" technique to travel back through time in order to retrieve him. They then took him back to their time in order to speak with an alien race that was accidentally destroying the Earth in its attempt to communicate with any daredevil billionaires that might be on the planet. Unfortunately for them, the Earth no longer used money, so there were no billionaires available, hence the need to fetch Fossett.

The evidence points so clearly to this scenario that there must be some sort of vast conspiracy covering it up, perhaps to avoid the embarrassment that would result from revealing that two of the Starship's crew members were able to infiltrate a nuclear wessel undetected.

Re:He's still kicking!

[A nonymous Coward]

Small airplane pilots can't even wear chutes; the harnesses are too big and can't be tightened up enough. Plus the canopy itself is too big and would float so slowly that they might not land for hours, if at all.

You might thank that big plane pilots have the opposite problem, but not really, because cockpit size generally limits their size to less than big enough to cause problems. Of course, open cockpit planes allow tall pilots, but even so, they can't really get too tall, or their thighs wouldn't fit inside either.

So it's really just a small plane pilot problem. What the FAA ought to do is ban booster seats and mandate that if your feet can't reach the rudder pedals naturally, you don't get to fly.

But this wouldn't help with Ercoupes.

Re:He's still kicking!

[funwithBSD]

That is sooo totally too complicated.

Occam's razor says that they brought him back to deal with the Grand Nagus after Kirk lost Earth in a Dabo game.

(not his fault, hard to tear your shirt in a Dabo game)
   

Re:He's still kicking!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong bad Sci-fi plot. You want one where the people from the future save those that are supposedly dead in airplane crashes so the future can have people with "healthy" bodies living there. Looks like they forgot to leave the fake body this time.

Re:He's still kicking!

[hurfy]

"Not to mention the questions that would come up when the wife says, "I wonder what happened to the $1000 he always kept in his pocket, just in case he needed some cash.""

Well....since they haven't found the pocket...I could think of an out ;)

Gotta be him tho, no other small plane pilot has $1000 left in his pocket after filling the tank for takeoff....

Re:He's still kicking!

[LingNoi]

Why do people think that small airplane pilots need parachutes?

I don't know myself. Well lets get back to discussing the story about a rich pilot that died in a small aeroplane crash..

Dollars to Donuts I say...

[clonan]

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!

Re:Dollars to Donuts I say...

[curiosity]

Exactly. Gravity is just an unproven theory. Intelligent Falling is clearly to blame.

Wrong about Fossett, wrong about Reiser...

[nweaver]

What are the random internet nutcases right about anymore?

Re:Wrong about Fossett, wrong about Reiser...

[fastest fascist]

See, this is exactly the problem with the Internet. Now that anyone can be a paranoid crackpot on-line, the venerable, traditional lunatic fringe is being devalued by all these crowd-sourced, anonymous cyber-nuts. Used to be, you could trust a conspiracy theory to be utterly impervious to disproof by reasoned argument - Who shot Kennedy, Elvis' faked death etc etc. Now these dilettantes are messing it all up.

The world ain't what it used to be.

Wacky conspiracy theory

[Puffy Director Pants]

It took them this long to find the plane because they had to fake up a wreck!

Occam's razor...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Occam's razor...

[Chris Burke]

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.

*sigh* More of this? You he's-alive-and-adopted-by-bears people are crazy nutjobs. It's the he's-alive-and-adopted-by-wolves people who have their fingers on the pulse of truth. Wake up!

Re:Check your own logic before calling others craz

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Fuel / Engine Related?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

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.

Re:Fuel / Engine Related?

[onkelonkel]

It was the deadly Cumulo-Granitus cloud.

Re:Fuel / Engine Related?

[Sponge Bath]

That reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where the pilot (looking out the wind shield) says to the copilot:
"Say, what's a mountain goat doing way up here in a cloud bank?"

From TFA...

[IronMagnus]

Rusty Aimer, chief executive of Aviation Experts

I hope this guy doesn't own a gun... get it?

GTA: Inyo

[jbeaupre]

Images of Grand Theft Airplane: Inyo National Forest. Poor dude getting jacked at 10,000 ft.

Re:GTA: Inyo

[idontgno]

Im Inyo National Forest crashin an burnin. kthxbye

Re:GTA: Inyo

[HTH NE1]

Images of Grand Theft Airplane: Inyo National Forest. Poor dude getting jacked at 10,000 ft.

Or The X-Files "Max", "I think he caught the connecting flight."

Re:My experience that day

[LotsOfPhil]

because...
Haikus are easy
but sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

Re:My experience that day

[Anonymous Coward]

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

Re:That's really a shame.

[Ashbory]

So true, just like when they found Amelia Earhart's plane last year. Major news outlets didn't think it was newsworthy enough to run the story at all.

1 foot = 3.04 metres?

[BandoMcHando]

Hmm.... I'm particularly loving the math skills of the International Herald Tribune's journalists.

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.

Re:Simpler still:

[MyLongNickName]

Thank you Captain Obvious! You have saved the day again!

Re:Simpler still:

[maxume]

He didn't save the plane.