Posted on 11/28/2007 10:46:37 AM PST by RicocheT
The wife of missing adventurer Steve Fossett has filed a petition for her husband to be declared legally dead, some three months after the 63-year-old disappeared without trace in the Nevada desert.
Despite a huge search operation mounted following Fosset's evidently ill-fated 3 September flight from Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, roughly 70 miles southeast of Reno, neither he nor the remains of his Bellanca Citabria Super Decathalon have been found.
Mary Downie, one of Mrs Fossett's lawyers, told the Chicago Tribune: "Although an ongoing recovery mission continues, all involved have accepted the inevitable conclusion that Mr Fossett did not survive."
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
Given the level of the search that’s already been conducted, I wonder if his remains will EVER be found.
Translation: Get me my insurance money.
?
I thought there was a specified waiting period (perhaps different for each state) before someone could be declared dead.
Some hunters or hikers will stumble across them one of these days.
Could be tomorrow, could be fifty years from now.
And on dry land.
Can anybody explain to me how the terrain in that area could preclude a diligent search party from discovering his plane and him? and especially with Fossett, I doubt any expense would be spared.
Fossett had no debt and no life insurance, according to the article.
That was low and dirty. Someone like Steve Fossett would have varied and extensive interests which are in limbo until the issue is resolved. She is well fixed for money and a declaration of his death is probably the last thing she wants.
I don’t blame her considering all of their joint property is tied up as a result of his disappearance. I don’t think there is any doubt he’s not coming back and I’m sure there is plenty of business she needs to deal with. What a shame.
How kind of you.
The “?” in jdm’s post indicated to me that it was simply a question. It depends in the family as to whom controlled the family funds, perhaps Steve and the ages old adage about “Life Goes On”. The need for closure isn’t just the need to know for certain what happened, but also for the survivors to be able to get on with life. The loss of a loved one is bad enough without the loss of ability to proceed with living as well.
People come up missing all the time up here, find what the animals didn’t clean up years later; but they usually find them in first 3-4 years. We had a guy in this town back 75 years got hurt 50 miles outta town (miner). He knew he couldn’t make it back and would die there, so he layed down in creek and died, so he’d freeze up and not get ate by scavengers; true story.
If you have Google Earth, the link below will open to the area where he was presumed to have crashed. The images were taken after the crash as paid for by someone(Branson I think?).
http://www.gearthblog.com/kmfiles/searchforfossett.kmz
You’ll see it’s some really nasty terrain in places. You’d have to be a goat or a mountain climber to get there.
If this guy had drawn a real flight plan...that would make a ground-search plan simpler...but he didn’t really do that. Adding to this episode...the terrain is rough, with canyons of various angles...which make spotting a wrecked aircraft an issue. Had his beacon gone off...then a very simple search box would have been possible...but strangely enough...it didn’t go off...which leads to two speculations...massive accident where the beacon didn’t make it...or he landed safely and the beacon didn’t trigger. There are plenty of flat areas where this could have happened...but you would have expected him to manually turn this on then. So we are left with no clues whatsoever. I’m sure in five years....we will have someone who says that aliens took him.
They found several previously unlocated crash sites while looking for him. And they don’t really know where he went down.
Are you from an urban area?
So, you think Fossett was captured by the Japanese?
Just kidding
I blame it on a big Henway.
There are some questions that you do not ask without the implication that an affirmative answer is a legitimate and implied possibility.
He was scouting dry lake beds looking for a place to run cars. I always wondered whether he landed on a “dry” lake bed that was only dry on the surface but got sucked down into a quicksand like hole...
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