Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Steve Fosset Belongings Found Near Mammoth ??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081001/us_nm/us_pople_fossett

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hikers in northern California have found clothing and personal items possibly belonging to millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who went missing a year ago, CNN reported on Wednesday.

Mammoth Lakes Police Chief Randy Schienle told CNN that a sweatshirt and other identification possibly with Fossett's name on it had been found by hikers in the area.

Fossett, 63, vanished in his airplane after taking off in the Nevada desert in September 2007.

A bit more info here:

http://www.ksrw.sierrawave.net/site/content/view/1355/48/

are you familiar with that specific area ? "mineret mine" ? i assume its close to the minerets but i have never heard of a mine there. i imagine the area is being flooded with hikers and searchers now.
also, how would the guys money and ID be in the area and no sign of an airplane ? you would think he would have his ID on his person and if his plane crashed he would be with the plane. strange. fascinating though.
i am thinking about going up there tomorrow. i might have to check this out.

http://www.knbc.com/news/17599203/detail.html

In the town of Mammoth, not the hiker!

Here is a TOPO of the general area.




Link to High Res Image

Yes there is was a mine, though not much of one. Photos here: http://highwire.stanford.edu/~galic/hiking/volcanicridge/

I hope they manage to find Fossett and bring this saga to a close!

Who would have looked for Fossett so close to civilization?

not so odd for a small or larger plane to disappear, fall into a ravine, escape detection, etc .

they are still finding parts at Mendel/Darwin from a WWII and/or later crash:
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/pacaeropress/vpost?id=2931951

They found the plane last night. Searchers have yet to find his remains.

Fossett plane found

They have found remains,
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gfmXbQn-RFLHSjd8_s23ytiM6OVAD93IL48O1
At least it provides closure for the family.
It does seem strange that he was so far off course from his original flight area.
It will be interesting if the authorities will release more info. i.e. time of accident, GPS co-ords. etc.

It sounds like they threw huge resources in there today, I'm wondering if we will be able to read about this in one of the SAR reports online

Now is the perfect time to be hiking ANYWHERE else. 1000s of wreck chasers will be out there, plus regular hikers and everyone else who thinks they can find the spot. I bet the authorities haul every ounce of that plane out. They are going to want to KNOW what happened...............................................DUG

Here is the official report, with an update.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20070917X01399&key=1

The New York Times posted a photo of Sheriff John Anderson of Madera County holding a map of the crash site.

This is the link to the New York Times photo: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/10/03/us/03fossett.inline3.ready.html

If you magnify the photo, you can see the exact position of the crash site. Since it is a bit difficult to make out, here is a topo of the exact site:



An interesting perspective of the site can be viewed in Google Earth. Here is one perspective. See if you can spot the yellow Google pushpin in the top middle of the photo, which marks the exact spot where the wreckage was found at 10,138 feet elevation, 1.2 miles northeast of Minaret Lake. It is amazing how Steve Fossett flew so far west into the Sierras without crashing in the more eastward peaks. It will be interesting to see the final analysis.

The view is looking north over Minaret Lake, which is in the lower left center of the photo, but the lake is foreshortened by the angle of view.



For a precise location, the GPS coordinates are 37.66745 degrees North and 119.13333 degrees West. The UTM coordinates are 4171060.0 N, 311845.47 E, 11s.

None of it makes much sense for such an experienced pilot on a cloudless day. Maybe he hit one of those infamous Sierra downdrafts that he couldn't climb out of fast enough.They said if he had been 500 feet higher he would have cleared the peak.I don't know what kind of mountain flying experience he had. If you aren't aware of the mtn peaks altitude in relationship to your own altitude there is a distorted perception that you are flying above the peak when you are actually below it.

My completely non-professional don't know crap opinion.... he had some kind of medical problem while in flight...

I know it is anecdotal but at least one of the articles I read online quoted the Mammoth police chief as saying that there were significant afternoon clouds and storms the day Fossett crashed, so it may have been partly weather-related. Coincidentally, a month or so before Fossett's crash, I read an article by Bob Pease in Electronic Design about the difficulty of visually determining your altitude with respect to local peaks and ridges and the problems (and possible escapes) of flying up a canyon and then not being able to climb out fast enough or turn sharply enough to recover.

I met Steve only one time, at a Washington University alumni event where he was the featured speaker. We had perhaps a five-minute conversation, but enough to learn that he had climbed Mt. Ritter from the back (west) side and to learn that he was a very personable guy. He was also past president of the National Eagle Scout Association and wrote my son Nathan a very nice letter of congratulations when Nathan finished his Eagle Scout rank. Needless to say, that letter is now an even more treasured keepsake.

May he rest in peace, and may his family find some closure knowing at least where he died, if not exactly how he came to be up in the mountains instead of out in the flats of Nevada.

Yeah, Doc...when I started reading some of the comments about the crash location and weather, winds, downdrafts, etc., it reminded me of the Pease article.

I wonder whether the NTSB will completely comb the area and pick up all the bits and pieces of the aircraft for reconstruction? This is one of those situations where I wonder if NESA or WashU or someone would consider a small memorial marker if parts of the wreckage are left in situ? There are a couple of markers in that neck of the woods, for Walter Starr, Jr., up in the Minarets and for the Rettenbachers in the valley below Banner Peak that leads up to North Glacier Pass.

Bob R's wrapup thread adds more information to this topic.

The topic is here: Steve Fossett search wrap-up