Posted on 07/27/2008 9:03:06 AM PDT by 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
That’s a good question..how much money does the government spend...how long do they search before they give up As I understood the Follett search, his family paid for it.
What took ya so long to find the other six?
I guess it pays to have parents that are experts in the jungle...
“
You left out one other possibility: They searched the wrong area.
“
Thanks for the elaboration.
I was inarticulately trying to say that under my scenario #2.
It kind of falls under my recall of a plane lost in the Andes...
I’ll post a link of the PBS/NOVA show on that in a little bit.
But you really filled in the possibility of not searching the right
sectors with your knowledge of the actual terrain of the region.
(I’ve never been in that area...but like a lot of “the West”, there’s
a LOT of wide-open spaces.)
I just faked reading the article.
It’s been confirmed by hotel security guards that Fosset is locked up in the men’s restroom of a LA hotel.
Nobody had searched for those six other planes before?
Hello Oatka (and to Smokin’ Joe; Stonewall Jackson)
That survival story about Juliane Köpcke is one H-LL-OF-A-RIDE!
Right up there with the nearly-unbelievable tales on Discovery Channel’s
“I Shouldn’t Be Alive” series.
I’d heard of a movie “Wings of Hope”, but never followed up or knew
the background of the film.
Interesting sidebar:
I think the model of Lockheed in the tale got a mention on The History
Channels “Modern Marvels” episodes on “engineering disasters”,
due to the loss of a plane over Texas due to break up of the wings
due to resonance of the engine mounts (better described by engineers,
not “VOA”)
Lockheed L-188 Electra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_L-188_Electra
In the above two crashes, NASA and Lockheed engineers eventually
determined that the engine mounts allowed too much precessional
movement of the propellers at a critical frequency which allowed
“whirl-mode” aeroelastic phenomenon, “flutter” in flight.
This flutter, by pure chance, occurred at the wings’ natural
resonance frequency, which further excited the harmonic oscillations,
which increased the wing flutter, that eventually led to separation of
a wing from the fuselage. The engine mounts were redesigned,
and the wing stiffened so the problem was solved by 1961.
The flying public’s confidence in the Electra, however, had been dealt
a near-fatal blow.
When it comes to searching for crash sites (of ANY type of vehicle)...
the PBS/NOVA episode (link below) reminds me...
1. Keep an open mind
2. Always remember that some sort of “X”-factor can account for
a failure to find the lost vehicle, no matter how great and conscientious
an effort is made to find the lost vehicle
3. Don’t beat up on yourself if you can’t find the vehicle; accept that
the crash site may never be found until a later generation or never at all
AND
4. NEVER BE SUPRISED what you’ll find when climbing, hiking, or
just walking or even relaxing.
Point Number 4 arose in my mind with the story of the mountain climbers
finding a Rolls-Royce engine while climbing the heights of the Andes.
(as in...”VOA” would have said “Who the h-ll drives a Rolls-Royce
to the bottom of a glacier in the Andes?” if I’d been one of the
climbers that discovered the engine!!!)
As much as “VOA” hates to endorse a production made without his
explicit consent and his tax dollars...
the PBS/NOVA production was a good recounting of a loss in early
commercial aviation on the fringes, a lack of understanding of the
jet-stream and how glaciers work over time.
Vanished!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/
As for some of my favorite movies involving air crashes...
one that’s not so old, one that’s an oldie (apparently not even
available on DVD)
Alive (The Miracle of The Andes)
Ethan Hawke
John Malkovich (uncredited as “Old Carlitos”)
“Ave Maria” by Linda Rondstadt and Aaron Neville
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106246/
VOA’s comment: The “Ave Maria” in the closing
credits with
the aerial photography of the crucifix memorial will fail to move
only the coldest heart.
And anyone that doesn’t get exhiliarated by two fellows descending
into the mountain meadows from a frozen peak probably has never
been in the mountains!
And John Malkovich’s uncredited narration as “Carlitos” later in life,
dragging on cigarettes and talking about he’d found G-d on the mountains
is a great bit of low-key spoken-word.
AND
The Mountain
Spencer Tracy
Robert Wagner
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049523/
A morality tale about an older brother (Spencer Tracy)trying to
rein in his younger brother’s greed.
And get both of them and any air-crash survivors off the mountain alive.
Too bad this film is so “old school” that it won’t get a nice
re-work and release on DVD.
(NOTE: The squeamish should avert their eyes when the older brother
has to stop a rapid fall)
Perhaps, but few can plausibly argue that he didn't have guts. And he also had enough money that even if his wife took most of it, he wouldn't be hurting.
By vanishing he'd have access to none of that money. He's even been declared legally dead.
If he had wanted to vanish and start a new life, he would have transferred his assets out of country, and simply disappeared. There would have been no need to fake an accident.
Wow, what a story! I’m gonna check to see if Netflix has that movie!
Dang! Netflix doesn’t have it!
This story looks made up to grab headlines. Look at their “evidence” for something phony:
—We couldn’t find him — but we found other planes.
—He flew a flimsy plane that could be dismantled easily
Excuse me, but wouldn’t the flimsy fabric that makes it easy to dismantle also make it easy to fold up in a crash and no longer look like a plane? Or be almost completely consumed by a relatively small fire?
I think maybe we ought to look into the bank accounts of the news reporter involved, to see if we find any deposits from insurance companies. Who has the most to gain from this story?
Some of those panes they found in that rough terrain dated back almost 30 or more years.
________________________________________________________________
More than enough time to have found them, don’t you think?
We used to camp out in Death Valley in December and January. Beautiful territory.
Evidently not if you just found 6 previously lost planes.
Maybe 10 years from now when you conduct another massive search you might find Fossett's plane. But until then, I think he skipped town...........
Yeah, I tried out Netflix also. The IMDb site has some minimal info and one review (see uviewer comments). I've got an old VHS copy around somewhere and this moves me to make one on DVD.
Very good. You figured it out. He's in Galt's Gulch waiting for Atlas to shrug.
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