Pilot's license found may be Fossett's

Just be nice.

Moderator: hemingray

User avatar
oldtrucks
Certified: OBSESSED
Posts: 1636
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:10 pm
Location: BANNED
Contact:

Pilot's license found may be Fossett's

Postby oldtrucks » Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:15 pm

With all the time we spend exploring Nevada I thought someday we might stumble across the wreckage and get a huge finders fees, another dream destroyed, back to the lottery I guess

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A hiker in a rugged part of eastern California found a pilot's license and other items possibly belonging to Steve Fossett, the adventurer who vanished on a solo flight in a borrowed plane more than a year ago, authorities said Wednesday.

The hiker, Preston Morrow, said he found a Federal Aviation Administration identity card, a pilot's license, a third ID and $1,005 in cash tangled in a bush off a trail just west of the town of Mammoth Lakes on Monday. He said he turned the items in to local police Wednesday, after unsuccessful attempts to contact Fossett's family.

Mammoth Lakes police Investigator Crystal Schafer confirmed that the department had the items, including the ones bearing Fossett's name.

Search teams led by the Madera County Sheriff's Department have been dispatched to the scene, and an air and ground effort was expected to be under way by afternoon, said sheriff's spokeswoman Erica Stewart.

Morrow said he found no sign of a plane or any human remains.

Fossett, whose exploits included circumnavigating the globe in a balloon, disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.

Michael LoVallo, a lawyer for Fossett's widow, Peggy, said, "We are aware of the reports and are trying to verify the information."

Aviators had flown over Mammoth Lakes in the search for Fossett, but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane. The most intense searching was concentrated to the north, given what searchers knew about sightings of Fossett's plane, his plans for when he had intended to return and the amount of fuel he had in the plane.

Morrow, 43, who works in a Mammoth Lakes sporting goods store, said he initially didn't know who Fossett was. It wasn't until he showed the items to co-workers Tuesday that one of them recognized Fossett's name.

"It was just weird to find that much money in the backcountry, and the IDs," he said. "My immediate thought was it was a hiker or backpacker's stuff, and a bear got to the stuff and took it away to look for food or whatever."

Morrow said he returned to the scene with a friend Tuesday to search further and did not find any airplane wreckage or human remains. They did find a black Nautica pullover fleece, size XL, in the same area, but he said he wasn't sure if the items were related.

Morrow said he consulted local attorney David Baumwohl, and they initially tried to contact the Fossett family but were unable to get through to their lawyers.

"We figured if it was us, we'd want to know first. We wouldn't want to learn from the news," 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.

Mammoth Lakes is at an elevation of more than 7,800 feet on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, where peaks top 13,000 feet. This year's biggest search for Fossett focused on Nevada's Wassuk Range, more than 50 miles north of Mammoth Lakes. That search ended last month.

One of Fossett's friends reacted to Wednesday's news with cautious optimism.

If the belongings turn out to be authentic, then that could help narrow the search area for possible wreckage, said Ray Arvidson, a scientist at Washington University who worked on Fossett's past balloon flights.

"It would be nice to get closure," Arvidson said.

Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.

He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Larry (ATV Ansel)

Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces

[url=http://www.offroadobsession.com/store]Offroad Obsession[/url]

[url=http://www.rallyontherocks.com]Rally on the Rocks![/url]

User avatar
Ken
Site Admin
Posts: 7501
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2004 4:23 pm
Location: Auburn, CA
Contact:

Postby Ken » Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:49 pm

Wow....that's wild that it wasn't with wreckage. Did he walk? Did it break up in the air? Will be interesting to see what happens.

and you're right....Looks like we can stop looking Tonopah/Mina and go back to Lotto.
The last words spoken before a YouTube video is filmed: "Hold my beer, now watch this..."

Regards,
Ken Hower
RTF Director
http://www.rubicontrail.org/

User avatar
oldtrucks
Certified: OBSESSED
Posts: 1636
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:10 pm
Location: BANNED
Contact:

Postby oldtrucks » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:52 pm

Now they have to find some type of debris and maybe a body or it sure makes it look like a scam
Larry (ATV Ansel)

Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces

[url=http://www.offroadobsession.com/store]Offroad Obsession[/url]

[url=http://www.rallyontherocks.com]Rally on the Rocks![/url]

User avatar
d2photo
Is Totally Obsessed
Posts: 816
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:24 pm
Location: You can hear the banjos
Contact:

Postby d2photo » Thu Oct 02, 2008 7:20 am

Looks like they may have found the debris
D2
www.peta-atv.com

'06 650 V2 Cat (roll count - 3) (rides w/o roll - 40

"You may not be the solution, but you can ALWAYS be part of the problem. It's good to contribute where you can"

User avatar
auendave
Knows UPS driver on a 1st name basis
Posts: 399
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:43 pm
Location: Marysville, Ca

Postby auendave » Thu Oct 02, 2008 6:16 pm

I heard at noon that it was definatly Fossetts plane they found.

User avatar
oldtrucks
Certified: OBSESSED
Posts: 1636
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:10 pm
Location: BANNED
Contact:

Postby oldtrucks » Thu Oct 02, 2008 6:21 pm

and the latest sounds like they may have recovered remains as well
Larry (ATV Ansel)

Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces

[url=http://www.offroadobsession.com/store]Offroad Obsession[/url]

[url=http://www.rallyontherocks.com]Rally on the Rocks![/url]

User avatar
Ken
Site Admin
Posts: 7501
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2004 4:23 pm
Location: Auburn, CA
Contact:

Postby Ken » Fri Oct 03, 2008 9:04 am

Here's the story, for the lazy..lol

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - Thirteen months after millionaire thrill-seeker Steve Fossett mysteriously disappeared, authorities finally know what happened to his small single-engine airplane: It slammed straight into a mountain on a cloudy day.

"It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly," said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nev., who assisted in the search.

The debris, hidden from easy view for more than a year, littered an area longer than a football field and nearly as wide of a steep Sierra Nevada mountainside some 10,000 feet above sea level.

It appears to have been a tragic end for the intrepid ballonist, who was scouting locations for an attempt to break the land speed record in a rocket-propelled car. Crews with cadaver dogs located a few personal effects amid the mangled metal, along with a small bone fragment.

"I hope now to be able to bring to closure a very painful chapter in my life," his widow, Peggy, said in a statement. "I prefer to think about Steve's life rather than his death and celebrate his many extraordinary accomplishments."

Search teams planned to hike back out to the site Friday to scour the steep flank for more traces of the missing aviator.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the remains found Thursday were enough to perform DNA tests to determine if they belonged to Fossett.

"We found human remains, but there's very little. Given the length of time the wreckage has been out there, it's not surprising there's not very much," said NTSB acting Chairman Mark Rosenker. "I'm not going to elaborate on what it is."

Madera County Sheriff John Anderson described the finding by one of his lieutenants as an oblong piece of bone, measuring 2 by 1 1/2 inches. Anderson also made a point of saying the bone fragment had not yet been confirmed as human.

"We don't know if it's human. It certainly could be," Anderson told reporters Thursday evening. "I refuse to speculate."

He said it would be sent to a California Department of Justice lab for testing.

Asked about the sheriff's assessment of the physical evidence, NTSB spokesman Terry Williams reaffirmed Rosenker's earlier statement.

"We stick by that. It's human remains," said Williams, who declined to say how the NTSB had arrived at that conclusion.

Meanwhile, California National Guard troops also were scheduled to head to the rugged spot in the Inyo National Forest where searchers located the wreckage of the single-engine plane Fossett was flying when he disappeared more than a year ago. They planned to airlift out the surviving portions of the plane in Blackhawk helicopters so they could be reassembled and examined at a nearby hangar.

Most of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found several hundred feet away at an elevation of 9,700 feet, authorities said.

Fossett, the 63-year-old thrill-seeker, vanished after taking off alone from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton.

His disappearance spurred a huge search that covered 20,000 square miles, cost millions of dollars and included the use of infrared technology. For a while, many of Fossett's friends held out hope he survived, given his many close scrapes with death over the years. A judge declared him legally dead in February.

The first breakthrough — in fact, the first trace of any kind — came earlier this week when a hiker stumbled across a pilot's license and other ID cards belonging to Fossett a quarter-mile from where the plane was later spotted. Investigators said animals might have dragged the IDs from the wreckage while picking over Fossett's remains.

The area, situated about 65 miles from the ranch, had been flown over 19 times by the California Civil Air Patrol during the initial search, Anderson said. But it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane, given what was known about sightings of Fossett's plane, his travel plans and the amount of fuel he had.

Lt. Col. Ronald Butts, a pilot who coordinated the Civil Air Patrol search effort, said gusty conditions along the mountains' upper elevations hampered the early efforts to search by air, as did the small amount of debris that remained after the plane crashed.

"Everything we could have done was done," Butts said.

As for what might have caused the wreck, Mono County, Calif., Undersheriff Ralph Obenberger said there were large storm clouds over the peaks around Mammoth Lakes on the day of the crash.

Fossett made a fortune in the Chicago commodities market and gained worldwide fame for setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon.
The last words spoken before a YouTube video is filmed: "Hold my beer, now watch this..."

Regards,
Ken Hower
RTF Director
http://www.rubicontrail.org/


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 54 guests