Posted on 10/01/2008 10:19:36 AM PDT by jazusamo
Items belonging to Steve Fossett, an aviator who's been missing for over a year, have been found by a California couple in the woods.
The couple was hiking in Mammoth Lakes, California, when they found FAA ID cards belonging to Steve Fossett - and police are saying the cards are not forged.
A search of the area has not turned up any further evidence of the pilot.
Steve Fossett, the commodities trader turned record-breaking aviator, was declared legally dead in February of this years, five months after he vanished while flying in Nevada.
(Excerpt) Read more at postchronicle.com ...
Per the article, Minaret Mine is at coordinates Lat: 37.67472, Lon: -119.14861.
-PJ
Thanks for the Lat and Lon, PJ. There’s a lot of rough country there and it’ll take a while to search it. Hope they find something soon, the weather will prevent search before long.
On the map, zoom out about 4 notches, and you can see how close Half Moon Lake is to Yerington, which is close to where Fossett took off. However, it’s not that close to where Fossett’s FAA cards were found at Mammoth Lakes.
Too convenient after the legal battle with the insurance company. This smells like a plant.
Yep, the guy that found the ID cards was on FNC earlier this afternoon and said there were also several $100 bills. He probably thought he hit the jackpot!
Yes, just checked it and it’s a long way to where the personal effects were found.
It could be a plant. It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything this new search turns up.
If it's a plant, it makes no sense.
When Fosset first disappeared there was plenty of expense and time spent by thousands of volunteers on the web through Amazon's "Mechanical Turk", using high res photos obtained for that purpose.
This area is outside of those high res areas, but not by much.
If there is a serious intention to find the remains of the aircraft, to identify the cause of the accident, and to find any remains that might be found, a similar effort would certainly be justified. A fifty by fifty mile area centered on this most recent site would define a 2500 square mile area that could be searched minutely on aerial photos obtained before winter sets in.
But it must be a real effort, no more hiding data that is useful to try to determine his possible flight path.
That means the coordinates of Fosset's airstrip, and the probable direction of his flight, as well as the range of the aircraft.
I am sure thousands of volunteers would invest the days of searching just as they did the first time.
Not revealing the coordinates of the find, but simply "east of Minaret Mine" is rather useless as that is a huge area to the Nevada border.
And normal images on Google Earth are nowhere near the resolution necessary to spot wreckage of the aircraft Fosset was flying.
I agree that it doesn’t make a lot of sense, I’m at the point I just won’t rule anything out.
I personally believe his plane went down in this area now that these effects have been found, to me that’s the logical thing.
The only thing that I wonder about is why he was in this area because if I remember right he wasn’t supposed to be. Of course with his flying experience he might have just decided to check something out and this isn’t far from the area he was supposed to be in.
Hopefully, like you say, they’ll get a concerted effort going before the weather gets bad.
Oh my!
Lawyer: Fossett ‘Probably Eaten’ In Alpine Wilderness.
according to David Baumwohl, an attorney for the hiker who recovered the items.
The hiker initially didn’t know who Fossett was, but once he found out, wanted to alert the Fossett family, Baumwohl said.
Baumwohl and Morrow tried to contact the law firm that handled the death declaration. When they weren’t successful, they decided to turn everything over to the police, the attorney said.
Morrow also found a black Nautica pullover fleece, size XL, but left that at the scene. A quick search for airplane pieces before night fell didn’t turn anything up, Baumwohl said.
Chances of finding remains are slim, said the attorney, who is a longtime resident of the mountain town and has followed similar cases.
“He’s probably been eaten. This is not the first time this has happened,” he said.
“When people land in alpine wilderness, there’s bears, mountain lions that’ll eat the body.”
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/17599478/detail.html?rss=den&psp=news
New discovery revives search for Fossett Shortly after noon today, Mono County Sheriff Search and Rescue teams will begin a search for the wreckage of lost air-adventurer Steve Fossett's plane, which went down in the California/Nevada area a year ago September. The search is based on discovery of a sweater and three of Fossett's aviation ID cards in the Minarets on Monday by Preston Morrow, a local hiker who works at Kittredge Sports. The search will begin on the John Muir Trail between Dorothy and Shadow Lakes. Prior searches focused on land east of the Glass Mountains.
The California Highway Patrol helicopter from Fresno will fly in the search teams.
There was a site set up on Google Earth set up with current satellite pictures. People were asked to search for a plane in the mountains. I’m not sure Mammoth was in the search area. Surprising that this stuff wasn’t found earlier since Mammoth is really popular
Thanks for linking that, George.
I’ve no doubt if the plane went down there that they’ll be hard pressed to find any remains, hopefully they’ll find the wreckage.
No, Mammoth Lakes was not in the original search area, it was just outside it.
The actual area where the items were found is called Reds Meadow which is west of Mammoth Lakes and in a pretty remote area.
This thread has several pics of the area.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2095342/posts
Meant to ping you to above post also.
Wreckage of planes have been missing for decades in those mountains. We may never in our lifetimes find the wreckage.
I have been there many many times. There is a pack station and a little store/restaurant there. There are lots of trails into the wilderness areas around there. My question is how he got down there was that even on his flight plan.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.