Fossett's Plane Found 356
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."
Check your own logic before calling others crazy (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Too early for amature guesses. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
My experience that day (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
So, how close were we? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Citabria, huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Or weather, or health related (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So, how close were we? (Score:4, Interesting)
A summary of various comments above: it was outside the turk's search area, and google earth still doesn't have recent photos of the crash site even now.
The google earth blog [gearthblog.com] however has a kml file of the crash location [gearthblog.com] based on the no-fly zone coordinates and some additional guesswork,
I looked at it and couldn't see any wreckage, certainly nothing we could have seen during the search.
-M
Re:He's still kicking! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, and he'll be picking up a reward [youchoose.net] for his honesty, assuming it's still on offer.
I'm sure he'll get plenty from interview deals as well.
Re:Facts for the Conspiracy Theorists (Score:3, Interesting)
>> That's one great reason why we pay taxes people.
Not quite.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/01/2057200 [slashdot.org]
Though I can't say I'm pleased at the thought of paying taxes that will go to searching for swashbuckling billionaires who crash their private planes into national parks. Seems like people in that category can handle a few invoices for the extra services they require.
Re:He's still kicking! (Score:4, Interesting)
Most airplane accidents are single-aircraft incidents, and most of the problems occur on take-off or landing, well below altitudes where a parachute can be effectively used. The number of lives saved would be negligible. Even if pilots were mandated to know how to use a parachute, most of them would probably stay in the plane to save the passengers, who would be even less likely to know how to use a parachute.
Re:He's still kicking! (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do people think that small airplane pilots need parachutes?
Because they lack information. I fly a Cessna 172 and even if the engine goes out its ~9:1 glide ratio means I have a decent amount of time to find a place to put down. I live near a number of blue shield interstate highways so in a worst case scenario I can put down on one of those or in the median between them. I haven't flown in (or around) mountains yet but I can't envision many situations in which it would be preferable to get out of my plane. That said, if I had to get out it wouldn't be hard. If you can get the door open, once you take your seatbelt off you could just lean out and fall headfirst. For people with Archers and the other low wings getting out would not be much fun at all.
The one situation that might apply here is what I call the "death canyon". Get into a gradually climbing canyon at a good altitude, and you find yourself unable to climb out (many small aircraft don't climb well at 10,000+ feet) and you can't turn around because the canyon is too narrow. In this particular case you would have plenty of time to
1) realize that you're in trouble
2) get out of the plane, if you're wearing a parachute.
I'm not saying that is what happened in this case, merely that it would match. Having said that, I can't imagine wearing a parachute in a small plane; it would be awfully uncomfortable.