f13.net

Plane was positively found and identified in the Sierra Nevada mnts. Some remains were found, possibly enough for an ID.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/02/steve.fossett.search/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

I hadn't even heard he was dead.

Sucks.

Wut?

Do you live in a cave?

Maybe because I just missed it that day? It wasn't like he was JFK.

You've lost more than a day of cave time. He went missing and there was a search for months, with regular news stories, followed by an online hunt where people pored over satellite photos.

Crazy, I guess I just tuned it out.

Don't feel bad FT, I have no clue who he is. And I'm on the internet all the time.

I wasn't aware "adventurer" was still a fucking career. I need a different line of work.

He only started being an adventurer for real from the age of 55, after a successful business career.

I'm a lvl 9 adventurer. 

Geocaches don't count, you noob.

I haven't heard any good reasons why he wasn't found until just now - was he extremely far off course and not in the search area?

From what I've heard, all the searching was concentrated in Nevada. Considering that where they found the wreckage is maybe 45mins from where he left, they apparently don't know what a "local" flight means. Maybe they thought that "local" meant he'd never cross the state line that is merely 5-10 miles away?

The terrain in that area is very rough and mountainous. They actually found 2 or so other crash sites that had not been found before when looking for Steve's crash site. Its sad but at least his family has answers to what happened.

(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45073000/gif/_45073331_fossett3_search_466.gif)

Flew just a litttttle bit to far.

Ditto... On all fronts.

Have you guys ever taken a commercial flight from California flying over Nevada and the surrounding mountains and deserts? No sh*t and I am not kidding you, the place is HUGE (and beautiful really). Its impossible to explain it with words, you got to see it to believe it. I remember looking down into one of the deserted mountain valleys thinking, "f-ing hell - its in the middle of nowhere, i wonder whats it like to be stuck down there". Its not like you are looking at a flat tabletop map with aircrash sites sticking out... Its all craggy and rocky with scary looking steep ravines everywhere (which hides stuff and is hell to get to). You look down and see places that humans have never ever set foot since the evolution of Homo Sapien. You don't appreciate the difficulty of finding a small plane wreck (the mass of a standard truck and more fragile) in that place until you've really taken a look at the landscape. He didn't crash in the salt flats (featureless plain) - he crashed into a mountain (deep scary isolated valleys).

As for Steve Fosset, news reports that I last read say that he was probably sucked into a thunderstorm in that area, lost control and did a hard dive into the side of the mountain. Fast merciful death; sad but a life of adventure is defined by risk.

There's lots of stories of planes going down and people getting lost in that area. There's one about this WWII fighter that went down, the guy is found, he thinks he was a mile away from where he crashed, and to this day no one's found it. And that's in any way unique.

It's extremely difficult terrain, you can't see anything, and flying in that area is apparently a major pita due to winds and how the mountains screw them up.

Also, small airports out that way have dickall for flight plans apparently.

So that Fossett went down there didn't really surprise people, nor that they couldn't find where he crashed for awhile.