Steve Fossett's Aircraft Found
 

BBC News Story

This discovery will hopefully answer a few questions and shoot down the conspiracy theories.

You've gone and done it now..........:ugh:
"Conspiricy" and "Shoot Down " all in the same sentence........

This thread has been running for just over an hour and no one has yet speculated on what caused the crash. Come on, Pprunesters, you can do it.

NTSB Press Release
 

Sorry, just the facts, zero speculation....

************************************************************
NTSB ADVISORY
************************************************************
National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594
October 2, 2008
************************************************************
NTSB INVESTIGATING CRASH IN CALIFORNIA
BELIEVED TO BE STEVE FOSSETT'S AIRCRAFT
************************************************************
The National Transportation Safety Board has
dispatched investigators to California to investigate the
crash of a small plane that was found yesterday that appears
to be the aircraft piloted by adventurer Steve Fossett.
The Bellanca 8KCAB (N240R) has been missing since
September 3, 2007, when the pilot departed Yerington, Nevada
for a local flight. The wreckage was located at about
10,000 feet of elevation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in
the vicinity of Mammoth Lakes, California.
Senior Investigator Georgia Struhsaker has been
designated Investigator-in-Charge for this accident. She
will be assisted by two other NTSB investigators and by the
Federal Aviation Administration. NTSB Chairman Mark V.
Rosenker is accompanying the team and will serve as
principal spokesman for the on-scene investigation. Terry
Williams is the press officer traveling with the team.
For news media, Mr. Williams may be reached on his
cell phone, 202-557-1350, when he arrives in California
later this morning.
###

NTSB Media Contact: Terry Williams (in California)
(202) 557-1350
Press Office in Washington, D.C.
(202) 314-6100



************************************************************

Thing is, no body found and the damage was "so severe I doubt someone would've walked away from it," - quoting . Papers and stuff found somewhere else, seems to me all questions are still open.

Also reference to wild animals and inferrence that this may have something to do with the absence of a body....

Flight was reportedly to 'scout locations', so I'll go with a low-level stall & spin while looking at the ground instead of flying the plane.

Good enough ?

Probably not. I thought Fossett was looking for a possible site for a land-speed record. Somewhere flatter than the Sierra mountains would have been my choice.

Parachuted out at low level and went walkies...

I'll just put my foot in with what I already read elsewhere.

1) S F was not familiar with the Bellanca.
2) The area has "dead-end" valleys, literally. You get suckered in, and once you're in you can neither turn, nor get the climb rate that might get you over the ridge at the end of the "corridor". A colleague of mine got killed that way in a helicopter, so it sounds plausible.

CJ

Someone asked for speculation. Here's my ten pennyworth.

Rumours are rife that Fossett led a double life, had money problems, etc.

Hypothesis: Fossett baled out and left the aircraft to its own devices to crash. He had carefully left some semblance of evidence, ie licences, etc, to suggest an accident. Then with the help of an accomplice, was picked up in some remote location and was whisked away to an unknown destination.

Jack

I'm with you, but including a bad (parachute) landing...
I think his body (at least what its left of it) may well be found, away from the crash site.:*
A new "probable position" may now be defined, having in mind this possibility, and the man/woman in charged will have to decide for either a "ladder" or an "expansion square" search pattern, depending on several items.
VF

thats my thinking too, very strange....

But going downhill might be useful. :oh:

A reliable source says he wasn't carrying a parachute.

End of hypotesis then. However, "reliable" seems an odd word to use - I had understood that there were NO reliable sources.

Jack

If this is the case it should be evident from the position of the wreck and the nature of the surroundings. If it is at the end of a dead end valley and too low then there can hardly be any other explanation.

Dutch news reporting bod has not been found and is not expected to be found due to wildlife out there.

Fist indications plane hit ridge in non-survivable crash

Respectively submitted, I'm afraid that sometimes the 'news' don't know what they are talking about, and this is such an occasion.

The new search party going into the area today have human cadaver dogs included in the team. So hopefully they will find some remains, large bones and teeth if nothing else.

Wild animals cannot consume an entire human body. There will aways be some remains, always. The only thing is, after a year it might be a little hard finding them. A large enough predator could have dragged the body to a cave or to an area that dogs cannot reach.

Time will tell.

I noticed that when the ID was found the thread was quickly moved from news to the "where are they now" section...

http://www.pprune.org/where-they-now...cts-found.html

Guys,

Just maybe, I know it's strange for some of you to believe, but just maybe this poor guy has crashed and been killed doing something that we all love and enjoy.

Just show a little respect, just a little, that's all I ask.

3REDS

con-pilot, I agree with what you say. Even the biggest of predators leave bits behind, they often seem to leave the top of the scull, hands and feet for some reason. So a 50 strong team with 5 dog units must find sumfin if it is there to be found that is!

Aren't we forgetting something?

If Steve was in that aircraft when it crashed into a mountain ridge (as suggested above) then there will almost certainly be proof of injury... DNA. Unless the plane went up in smoke (not reported)... and if it did, why are specualting about wild animals and further searches, so it didn't.

I am really shocked at the way pprune has gone. I've been accused of not being a pilot, though I think my posts on the madrid crash should prove I am.

I've seen people say all sorts of things.

First off, I've flown ,at very high altitude, over the crash site...many pilots flying to the west coast have or very nearly so.

Second off, I've driven near there on US395, the east side of sierra nevada between reno and the Los Angeles area.

IT IS ROUGH COUNTRY for anything. It is marked on the VFR sectional as the Ansel Adams Wilderness Area...you smart guys will know who Ansel Adams is.

IF You look at the lat/long of his departure point and his reported crash point it is virtually due south (true not mag) right along the 119degree meridian of longitude.

There ARE reports, reliable from the NTSB that there WAS a post crash fire and that the engine was 200 to 300 feet from the fuselage or what is left of it.

I have seen the still photos of the crash that are not yet in wide circulation. Pieces...engine looks like an engine and it looks like all the connections for fuel lines are intact at the engine...of course the lines are apart farther down the line.

I think the pilot was incapacitated somehow prior to the crash and a well trimmed plane will go on for quite awhile...though there are reports that the plane's heading post crash was NorthEast...as if returning towards the departure point.

This happened at 10thousand feet or so. Hypoxia and an unknown medical problem MAY ,repeat MAY have been a factor.

Some have said he might have become lost in the clouds...THE MAN has an ATP and knew he was close to the Major western Mountain range. IF he had entered a cloud he would have CLIMBED...even without good gyros, just go FULL POWER and roll the trim back keeping an eye on airspeed and keeping the stick somewhere in the middle of the cockpit and you might be OK

BUT AN ATP wouldn't enter clouds so close to a mountain!

I have a grand total of ONE hour in the super decathalon. some 33 years ago. I have 12,000 hours now. While I wouldn't go upside down in it, I would feel comfortable flying it in normal situations and not too much crosswind for landing. It is a joy to fly. I assume SF was or would be as comfortable as I would be in this type of plane.

Not finding a body...give them time. Its been over a year. In a few hours there will most likely be a snow storm and cover things up again for another year or so.

the USMC has a mountain warfare training camp within 50 miles...they train for afghanistan there.

Sometimes you fly a decathalon with a 'chute, other times with a seat cushion instead ...if he wasn't going to go upside down he probably didn't have a chute

He was less than 10 miles from a 7000' runway at mammoth lakes airport.


Previous dissapearances in this area include a skiier who was never found...though his boots were.

Bears, Mountain lions (pumas) inhabit the area and good have dragged the poor man off.

IT , the site, is near a lake and an animal may have dragged him there.

THAT his pilot's license was found some distance away suggests he either walked out (unlikely) or his clothes were dragged away by an animal and that plastic doesn't taste good...neither does 1005 dollars in cash. a person would have taken that.

now, please, only intelligent posts!

sevenstrokeroll, agreed, the landscape is so rugged and rough it is nearly impossible for those who have never seen the area, let alone fly over it, to understand just how hostile the terrain is.

Many, many years ago I flew a Aero Commander 500 all over that part of the country doing magnetic survey work. So I can tell all those that are unfamiliar with the area that is bad. In the afternoon summer time the turbulence is so bad you wonder how the wings are staying on. Also the skies can go from clear to severe thunderstorms within minutes.

It does not surprise me in the slightest that the aircraft was not found until now. In fact, I'm slightly surprised they did find the aircraft this soon.

Let the cadaver dogs do their job before people jump to conclusions regarding parachutes and such nonsense.

Associated Press report
 

Associated Press reporting body parts found inside aircraft


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

Sky News just now: " body parts found in wreckage"

Sorry to spoil the conspiracy theorists day!

The part that I find amazing, is that .. how many search planes was it? - 57? .. spent weeks looking for wreckage .. and a hiker finds two teensy little ID cards, and some $100 bills .. then a search aircraft finds the tail with a visible number? Doesn't say much for the search people - were they using observers with white canes? .. or is the wreckage buried deeply in a ravine?

Nasty place to fly
 

Been back and forth over that area a lot of times in a Mooney. Never go below 15,500 though . Nasty terrain. Even the Mammoth lakes airport is notorious for DA related accidents.

Evil, evil Mt Wave on that side of the hills. Locals said there were towering cumulus that day as well. Lots going on that a single engine piston close to its service ceiling won't get you out of ... or even come close, if the ridge winds are over 25 knots.

Not too much like that in the UK to compare!

Go to Google News

NTSB: Remains found at Steve Fossett wreckage site
38 minutes ago
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. (AP) — Federal investigators say they have found body parts amid the wreckage of a missing adventurer's airplane in the mountains of eastern California.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that searchers found enough at the crash site of Steve Fossett's plane to provide coroners with DNA.
National Transportation Safety Board acting Chairman Mark Rosenker won't say exactly what searchers found. But he says it was not surprising how little they uncovered, considering how long it had been since the crash.

---

the search planes went over the site 19 times last year.

it is tough country

it was luck that he was ever found

and it makes sense that it was almost exactly a year later...snow covered him up for a year and it melted just recently enough to allow this discovery.

CON PILOT

did you fly convicts around at ...oh what was it called?

did you find alot of iron in them there hills...and magnetic disturbance?

Any chance he might have gone up to high and become hypoxic? (like the Helios (I think) or King Air flights)
Realised it, set aircraft to descend, and crashed into the mountians?
Maybe knew it was about to crash and tried to jump out? (or animals)



(But I do think the "double life" is more realisitic)

The search aircraft did not see the aircraft registration number, all they saw was possible aircraft wreckage. That was only found after the search party reached the site.

Yes, it was called, The United States Marshal Service Air Operations, Justice, Prisoner and Alien Transportation Divison, JPATS for short, or;

Con-Air. ;)

(We tried to get 'Con-Air' as our call sign, but because on the East Coast there was a company that had the call sign 'Com-Air' we were turned down.)

Further news with pictures. Looks like they found remains. It was a high speed impact into the mountainside at 9700 ft elevation:

The Associated Press: NTSB: Remains found at Steve Fossett wreckage site

O my God what is wrong with you people?
You are SICK ANAMILS!
Have some respect for the man would you. (RIP)
Aviators my ass!

con pilot

I remember that outfit...a very long time ago I flew for such places as "cal air", west air, wings west and the like out of california.

any ring a bell?

James Stephen Fossett
 

Very fortunate that Preston Morrow the hiker who found the documents and currency, turned them over. How easy it would have been to say nothing. A good man.

The aircraft itself was found just outside the original search zone, and nowhere near the mountain search area in July. I'm certain it will bring some closure of sorts to Mr. Fossett's family, again thankfully for Mr. Morrow's find.

I am one, who actually enjoyed watching and hearing about Mr. Fossett's great adventures, really, truly an amazing guy, who truly lived life.

James Stephen Fossett - Adventurer
April 22 1944 - September 2 2007

RIP Mr. Fossett

Human remains found among debris, violent crash not survivable:

Searchers find Fossett plane and human remains - Summary :