Does anyone wonder why not even a small peice of the plane has never been found? how about where it could of even made it to/

I read on CNN a couple of days ago that he was declared dead. So, no more looking for him.

Its not like the world to just forget a great man like that. someone get me Richard Bransons number maybe he can fund a real search !

Do they know where he was flying and/or where he was headed? Is it possible he could have crashed in the ocean or something?

(I'm not very familiar with this case - This is actually the first I really heard mention of it)

He only had a 600 mile radius to be inside of,and the civil air patrol looked for a good time ,and even some image planes were flown over the area. he was in a small acrobatic plane he could of just gone in a very small black hole or under a rock.

He was in a pretty small plane over a rather large desert. One would think that the white of the aircraft would stickout, but if he went straight in and the plane was really torn up, there wouldnt be much to find anyway and the desert does a good job of covering things up with dust in just a few hours if there is any wind...

I am pretty sure they would have found him had he just made an emergency landing somewhere with engine troubles and was trying to get help; he was bright enough to signal for help 10 different ways. The fact they never found anything obvious tells me that he either went in hard and fast and the plane was in too many small pieces to be seen from an altitude and has been swallowed up by the desert, or he wanted to be dissapeared, and is now joe smith from Chicago who works as a gas station mechanic someplace...

Yeah, I've thought of that scenario, too. It would be pretty easy with his kind of money to disappear after having a bit put aside somewhere.

no kidding Im ready to get a team togther and look for him for real. Its not right to let this go .remember they found the titanic and a few other fosslet`s in the past.

Steve Fosset was a great man... One of the few true pioneers and heroes left in this world. His disappearance is a great loss to us all. Even if he just wanted to become anonymous then I say Let him. Who are we to deny this?

I just say, let the matter rest, let his contribution to the world stand testimony for his achievements.... do not turn this into a conspiracy theory, it would be doing an immense injustice to him.

I must agree keithsco.

The official search for Steve is over.
No sign has been found, and by now, there's little doubt that he is gone.

I am willing to bet that people are still flying out there, looking, in an unofficial capacity, and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

It seems rather incomprehensible that we haven't found him, I realize, unless you understand the area where he was flying toward when he went missing.
The area is a dessert which is covered in a virtual latticework of small brush scattered all over the place for many miles. It acts as camoulflage quite literally. There are many plane carcasses out there, and often, they are only spotted by chance, after a thorough search of the area...in fact, during the official search, photos taken from altitude were publised to illustrate an aircraft laying down in that mess, and you really...really had to look hard to see it. Often, a plane will overfly the area four or five times and finally, someone will see a white spot or something...

It's a tough area...for search and rescue and for pilots...the winds and such cause all kinds of grief, and many airplane shells are in that area, virtually hidden from sight.

Based on the fact that no ELT (emergency locator transmitter) signal was received by any aircraft (to the best of my knowledge), I have to think that either Steve didn't have one aboard (which makes absolutely no sense for a pilot of his experience and knowledge), or that perhaps it was disabled by the impact...which would've had to have been a major crash.

The man was a survivalist, and adventureer, an explorer, and if he survived a crash, you can bet your bottom dollar he'd have had the means and found a way to signal his presence...even if it meant burning up his airplane. But we simply don't know. Perhaps he was killed in an uncontrolled crash. Perhaps he was too disabled to do anything...

But I think he's out there someplace, and someone will find him someday.


It's no conspiracy...it's just misfortune. Like Emilia Erhardt...no conspiracy there (why would there be?). Some intrepid explorer will find that airplane someday as well...

MID and keithsco,

I couldn't agree more.



Very much so. I have been driving around a lot in the deserts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California, and if one is downed there without an emergency beacon, odds are that one isn't found for quite a while.

As both of you state, lets not soil his memory and reputation by wrapping his unfortunate demise in a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Cheers,
Badeskov

Correct me if I'm wrong here, But a 600 mile radius = 1,130,976 square miles of search area. Thats a lot of searching!




Correct me if I'm wrong here, But a 600 mile radius = 1,130,976 square miles of search area. Thats a lot of searching!

I agree with the let him rest if hes gone from this time and place

Steve Fossett, the multimillionaire adventurer, has been declared legally dead five months after his disappearance while flying over the Nevada desert.

His wife, Peggy, had filed her petition in a court in Chicago to allow the process of executing Mr Fossett's will to begin.

After hearing testimony from Mrs Fossett, a family friend and a search-and-rescue expert, Judge Jeffrey Malak of the Cook County circuit court yesterday found there were "more than sufficient" evidence that Mr Fosset was dead.
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I had thought more time was allowed before becoming officially deceased especially as there is no evidence either way.

"If a person has not been heard of for seven years, there is a presumption of law that he is dead; but at what time within that period he died is not a matter of presumption but of evidence, and the onus of proving that the death took place at any particular time within the seven years lies upon the person who claims a right, to the establishment of which that fact is essential."
go

We may know some day if we keep looking?

It did strike me as odd that a billionaire adventurer on a dangerous flight wouldn't have a GPS emergency locator that a lot of hikers and outdoorsmen use. Not like he couldn't afford it, nor that it wasn't called for...just seems....odd...

He just may of gone in too hard and even a gps can be destroyed,if that was the case he went down doing what he loved the most,flying and trying! he was a great man DONTEATUS

A GPS isn't an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter).
ELTs are required equipment on aircraft, have been for a long time (They were back in the day, anyway). There's no doubt Mr. Fosset had one on board that airplane. It's also not clear at all whether he thought he was on a dangerous flight, although I'm sure he fully realized the rather wild aerodynamic area he was flying into.


As I speculated, perhaps his ELT was destroyed on impact, or maybe it wasn't functioning...