Adventurer Steve Fossett 'may have faked his own death'

The Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 7/27/2008 | Chris Irvine

[1066AD]

Adventurer Steve Fossett 'may have faked his own death' Round-the-world flying adventurer Steve Fossett may have faked his own death, investigators have claimed. By Chris Irvine Last Updated: 12:22PM BST 27 Jul 2008 Fossett, a friend of Virgin boss Richard Branson, and the first man to fly non-stop round the earth in a hot air balloon, went missing last September when his final flight in a light plane over the Nevada desert went missing. However, Lieutenant Colonel Cynthia Ryan of the US Civil Air Patrol has said Fossett, whose body or plane was never found, could still be alive. She said: "I've been doing this search and rescue for 14 years. Fossett should have been found. "It's not like we didn't have our eyes open. We found six other planes while we were looking for him. We're pretty good at what we do."

[theDentist]

Well, if it were ME, I’d take off, land someplace, and take out some paint and change the airplane numbers. Then fly elsewhere (south of the border) and sell the plane outright.

[griswold3]

I do believe Osama bin Laden is dead.

[EDINVA]

The writer doesn’t know Nevada, obviously. Had his plane gone down in the desert, he and it would have been found. He was lost in the MOUNTAINS of Nevada ... huge difference. Nevada is a very mountainous state ... I’ve heard the most mountainous. AND the reason that lost planes are found decades after the crash.

It’s also appalling that six planes were found during the search for Fossett ... guess those pilots weren’t well-known enough for bigger searches.

[Joe 6-pack]

"When did those planes crash...?"

I'm going to go out on a limb and venture a guess that it was sometime after 1903...

[Oatka]

I was looking for Werner Herzog's "Wings of Hope", which is also called Julianes Sturz in den Dschungel,

I looked for that one also, and ended up requesting them to get it.

What spooked me was that just the night before, we watched "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" by Herzog and the next day this thread pops up and I find out Herzog was down there scouting locations for "Aguirre" and would, as you mention, have taken that same flight but for an itinerary change.

"Miracles" is out of print, but see if you can find it. The director put Susan Panhaligon through the real stuff (rivers, jungle, etc.) - no studio stuff here. It's a wonder the actress didn't get infected or come down with something herself.

[NVDave]

That’s what I’ve tried to tell people here on FR - Nevada is a very, very rugged state north of US-6. Most people think all of Nevada is what they see when they visit Las Vegas. Not true. The area north of US-6 is very rugged, whereas the area south of US-6 is wide open low desert.

Light planes go down in Nevada all the time. There are searches mounted. What people from urbanized states, especially the coasts, don’t understand is how big the country is, how few people there are to assist in the search, and how rugged the terrain is. Searches are conducted, efforts are made, but crash sites in rugged box canyons, or across mountaintops are just not easy to spot from the air and it takes a long time to search even a relatively small area of these mountain ranges.

What I find most amusing are flatlanders spouting off about how easy it would be to conduct these searches. After years of hunting chukar, deer, mountain goats, etc up in the mountains of Nevada, there’s one thing that amuses me most of all: watching flatlanders in the mountains, especially above 7,000’. They take a step. Then they suck wind for five minutes. Another step, more sucking. Repeat until they’ve done maybe 1,000 elevation gain in a day, when they’d have to do 4,000 to get to the top of the range.

I won’t even bother to detail how their fashionable modern hiking boots (made from silly synthetic materials and glue) get shredded in the rock slides, scree and talus slopes in Nevada.

[KYGrandma]

Good cover for a murder?

[American_Centurion]

I have “Alive” on Laser Disc.

[Smokin' Joe]

I had not considered that, but it would be not such a tough thing for someone knowledgeable about aircraft.

Sabotage is seldom a guaranteed method, especially with a target who has a propensity for surviving tough situations, but it would fall into the realm of possibility.

Without evidence, though, it would be nothing more than speculation (same as I regard the whole bit about affairs and disappearing), but you seldom find that for which you do not look.

[Smokin' Joe]

You left out the cougar, too...an injured man might look a lot like lunch.

Also, at 7000+, nights are cold out there (30-40 degrees), and (spring/summer) daytime temps of over 100 are not uncommon.

Rough country if you are ready for it, brutal if you are not, and to be respected as such.

[NVDave]

Yes, there certainly is that issue too.

The valley floor in Diamond Valley gets to 95F during the day, 45 or so at night. Up in the mountains it gets down to the low 40’s at night in the summer, 30’s well into June and again by late August. Very pleasant weather, IMO.

This high differential in day/night temps is why central Nevada is one of the three areas in the west that can grow the best hay in the world.

[boogerbear]

Does the guy realize that his own statement proves him wrong. If they should have found Fossett’s plane by now his is that they found 6 other wrecked planes while looking? How long had those planes been considered missing?

[mad_as_he$$]

Ever been to the central Sierras? There are canyons over a mile deep with almost vertical walls. Areas that require helicopter insertion. The Marines have a mountain warfare base in the area of Pickle Meadows. Even they will not attempt to tackle some of the peaks in the area. I have hunted, fished and camped in the area for years. Some of it is so remote and desolate it is just plain off limits. There are wind shears events that actually will take eagles and slam them into the side of the mountain so fast they cannot react or fly fast enough to get away. It is very rough country.

[Old Professer]

Almost $50 million in life insurance.

[SunkenCiv]

/bingo

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052103/posts?page=10#10
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052103/posts?page=29#29

rumor mill:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052103/posts?page=8#8

[SunkenCiv]

Whoops. Forgot to mention that this is a “Tupac Shakur dep’t” ping.

[VOA]

Other links of interest:

(This was a story about a WAC pilot that went missing, most likely
over Santa Monica Bay while transporting a P-51 from what is today
LAX, or Los Angeles International Airport. There were rumours of
a film to be done on the topic.)

Memory assists in the search for lost plane
Frank Jacobs was 12 when he saw an aircraft plunge near LAX.
Could it have been WWII pilot Gertrude Tompkins and her P-51D?
http://www.aircraftwrecks.com/articles/dailybreeze/dailybreeze2.htm

Aircraft Wrecks in the Mountains and Deserts
of the American West
http://www.aircraftwrecks.com/index.htm

[EDINVA]

Maybe more folks should visit Tahoe instead of Las Vegas ?

It really is a pity so few Americans have explored that part of the country that you enjoy so much ... but if they did, you couldn’t have the same pleasure, so we’ll keep it a secret ;)

[Centurion2000]

That’s what I’ve tried to tell people here on FR - Nevada is a very, very rugged state north of US-6. Most people think all of Nevada is what they see when they visit Las Vegas. Not true. The area north of US-6 is very rugged, whereas the area south of US-6 is wide open low desert.

Drove through Battle Creek, Eureka and Ely once while passing through the state. Absolutely gorgeous if a bit dry in that state. And US 50 (Ne and Ut) is one seriously DESOLATE stretch of road. Loved it.

[LucyT]

Another story that might be of interest:

Pilot reaches deep to plumb mystery of Montana crash

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

By Bryan Gruley, The Wall Street Journal

POLSON, Mont. — One March evening in 1960, Capt. John Eaheart of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve set off from an Air Force base in Montana in a Grumman F9F Cougar fighter jet.

[snip]

When a local man, John Gisselbrecht, heard them (the stories) in 1991, “It drove me nuts,” he says. Though the aviation buff knew neither the pilot nor his family, he set out to find Capt. Eaheart. His quest ended this month off the southeastern shore of Flathead Lake.

[snip]

According to 1960 newspaper accounts and a Navy report made public this month, Capt. Eaheart flew directly over Mrs. Lewis’s parents’ home at an altitude of 500 to 1,000 feet. He banked hard left toward Wild Horse Island then left again, angling toward shore, when his plane nosed downward into the lake at 7:25 p.m. Mrs. Lewis’s father saw the plane go down.

The crash left a light oil slick on the water and the smell of jet fuel in the air. Witnesses reported seeing two splashes and a long rooster-tail of water. After a few days, the Navy, Marines and local police gave up their search, which Mrs. Lewis, then 30, had watched from the shore.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06143/692450-84.stm