I looked all around the forum for a Steve Fossett thread and didn't see one. I tried "Search" a couple of times, but it never loaded for me. So Dingo, whomever, please move this thread where it should go, lol.

Here's an AP article from today's San Jose Mercury (and I think it's one of the greatest newspapers in California and has been for a long time) which I think pretty well describes why they're having trouble finding Steve Fossett:

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6839086?nclick_check=1

Fossett coverage reveals a lonely state, unlike any other
By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 09/08/2007 01:13:26 PM PDT


RENO, Nev.—This week's news reports about missing aviator Steve Fossett have been filled with references to the barren and empty landscape he was flying over when his plane disappeared.
But from outside Nevada, it's hard to fully appreciate just how expansive, how desolate the wide open spaces of the state can be.

Superimposed over a U.S. map, Nevada's 110,000 square miles would stretch from New York City, west to Pittsburgh and south to Myrtle Beach, S.C. Then remove nearly all the people.

While Nevada's population has been the fastest growing in the nation for most of the last three decades, it averaged just 18 people per square mile in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That compares to a national average of 80 people per square mile and 1,134 in New Jersey, the nation's most densely populated state.

Even that doesn't tell the whole story. Some 2.3 million of Nevada's nearly 2.6 million residents live in just the two counties that include Las Vegas and Reno. Across the rest of Nevada, there are fewer than three people per square mile.

"There's just very, very few human beings out there," said Guy Rocha, Nevada's state archivist.

So much of the state is so desolate that the Web site of the Nevada Commission on Tourism urges visitors to carry plenty of water and gasoline when traveling to many of the destinations it lists. Cell phone coverage is spotty, and often nonexistent.

The area of northwest Nevada where the

search for Fossett is concentrated is considered one of the state's most barren regions and has been relatively unchanged for more than a century.
"I don't think the general public watching on TV really has too much of an idea of just how rugged and remote this area is," Rocha said.

Outside Reno, Las Vegas and the capital, Carson City, the nation's seventh-largest state is a vast emptiness.

The severe landscape that marks the overwhelming majority of Nevada is far different from the traditional travel brochures that feature the beaming lights of the Las Vegas strip or the forested ski resorts ringing Lake Tahoe.

Miles of high desert are broken up by hundreds of mostly barren, craggy mountain ranges rising 8,000 to 11,000 feet from dry lake beds and seas of sagebrush. The state has 300 named mountain ranges—more than any other state in the nation—and few roads outside its main cities and towns.

"In Nevada, there is a lot of 'middle of nowhere,'" said Chris Healy, a spokesman for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, which issues licenses to hunt deer, elk, antelope, bighorn sheep and mountain lions.

Rural Nevada is dotted with gold and silver mines, many abandoned a century ago. Irrigation allows limited farming and livestock grazing in some of the valleys, mostly on territory administered by the state's largest landholder—the federal government.

One leg of the California Trail, used by 19th century pioneers coming overland in wagon trains, passes through the Fossett search area. It runs from a former Pony Express post into the dry wasteland that stretches to the flanks of the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Few immigrants, however, dared to brave the barren route. One party that made it through in 1853 threatened to lynch its leader because of the deprivations it endured along the way.

"The route was described as 'strewn with wreckage of prairie schooners (covered wagons), oxen yoke and bleached animal bones,'" reads one historical marker.

Today, the most traveled part of the region is on the eastern edge of the search area bordering Walker Lake, where Highway 95 connects Reno to Las Vegas some 450 miles south.

The quality of the view is in the eye of the beholder.

"The mountains are pretty. It's scenic," said Healy, the wildlife official.

John Sullivan wasn't prepared for the isolation when he first made the drive to Las Vegas after moving to Reno 20 years ago from his native San Francisco.

"Boring. Just so monotonous," Sullivan said. "It's just dirt, sand and a couple three or four small towns you've got to drive through."

On the bright side, he said the trip to Las Vegas goes faster than the mileage might suggest because it's easy to get away with exceeding the speed limit.

"I made it in 5 1/2 hours once," he said.

Typically, the drive takes about eight hours.

I've been out there in the Nevada basin-and-range province lots of times and even just off of an interstate highway, it's a wilderness. A state highway, like Nevada State 50 and you are in a wilderness, even these days. In the 80s, when I toured on a bike, it was the back of beyond. For folks who have never driven the deserts of the US west, it's hard to describe how deserted things are.

And when in a plane, I can see how you have backcountry beneath you.

I am going to predict Steve crashed into the side of a ravine and that although they think he was flying aroung the Lee Vining area on Monday morning (people in the area say a plane like his was seen flying around there at the "right time") I think he went back and flew farther north or northwest than they had to assume in starting the search and rescue effort.

Like many bloggers I've read, some of whom are pilots, I predict a strong, sudden canyon/ravine wind got him. I think maybe he crashed into the side of a ravine, rather than into the bottom of one. A lot of the basins up there in Nevada run north/south, so if Steve hit on the east or west side of a deep one, he may be, like 200, 300 feet up on the side of a slope. I'll guess he was struck dead on impact.

I come from a town with California coastal mountains nearby and a well-known small plane airport. Lots of times, when the little planes would crash into a hillside/canyonside, they went in on an angle, the crash would shear off one wing and destroy the cockpit and the whole front end. The outside wing usually stayed on the body of the plane, but the back end and tail would often break off and sometimes slide down the slope far away from the rest of the wreck. Wrecks were sometimes found because they saw the tail by itself on some mountainside, then the searchers could follow up and find the hidden-by-terrain main part of the wreck.

Anyway, I hope Steve Fossett makes it, but after this lenght of time and knowing how Nevada is made of canyons and mountains (basin, range, basin, range) I'll bet he's on some lonely backcountry slope, and he died on impact. Devil wind gust, small plane, not his plane, that's like having a driving emergency when you're borrowed someone else's car. You're a good driver, but you get surprised and it may not handle as you think...or need.

And with bright sun in the Nevada, if Steve is crashed on an east facing slope or a west one, well, the search plane folks have to have their faces to the sun or they see shadows, so, if he's sort of hidden by the conture of the slope or things upon it, they may have to be there at just the right time of day to get a visual on him. And, if it was a fast crash, well, the little plane may be so torn up, crumpled or big sections thrown and slid here and there, they may be missing the "seeing" of him with visuals or equipment.

For me, no conspiracy here...just a heck of a fast, unlucky way for a pilot to be killed, even a good pilot. I hope they find him soon. A lot of people decry him because he was so rich, but still, heck of a way to lose someone, so hard on the family and friends to be wondering and hoping.

I know it's a long shot but I hope he turns up alive even if not 'well' - I guess there's always hope in such a vast expanse.

Ben

I guess this link articulates precisely what I mean.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6984776.stm

There's always hope....

Ben

Great story, I agree, Ben. I hope so too. I want Fossett to be all right.

As of the news this morning, the search will be called off. There is no sign of his plane or him or any thing to show he crashed . Just nothing is turning up. I hope where ever he is , hes alive and trying to find a way to signal for help. It seems every one is beginning to give up hope of finding him dead or alive. May his creator be with him and his family and friends.

Wow, I really thought they would find the wreck by now. I wish they had.

As Cricket says, yes they are stopping the official search for Steve Fossett. And, after hearing in relation to this case about other flyers lost over Nevada through the years, I was hoping they would find the plane crash for William Odle, the man in Florida whose father disappeared in the same area in 1964. Here's a news piece about halting the search, what Fossett's loss may do to his wealth and fortune and since this is "Aliens/UFOs", have a look at the bottom of the text about the most popular conspiracy-type concerning the whereabouts of Steve Fossett:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle2500579.ece

Wife clings to hope as Fossett hunt is halted

Tim Reid in Washington
Rescuers called off the search for the aviator Steve Fossett last night, 17 days after his light aircraft disappeared over the Nevada desert.

After 474 flights covering 20,000 square miles, the Nevada Civil Air Patrol sent its aircraft back to base and the state’s National Guard helicopters were grounded, having found no trace of Fossett or his light aircraft.

Fossett’s wife Peggy continues to fund a private search involving eight light aircraft, but with hopes fading of finding him, legal experts gave warning of a potential legal battle over his multimillion-dollar estate.

Under the law in California, where Fossett lived, it could take at least five years before his family can have him declared dead. Without a death certificate his estate, estimated at over $50 million, cannot be administered.

Related Links
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Multimedia
In pictures: Steve Fossett
Members of Fossett’s adventuring team in Chicago insisted last night that the private search would continue “until we find him”. They are being helped by internet users around the world who are examining live images of the Nevada terrain provided by Google. Brigadier General Amy Courter, of the Civil Air Patrol, said she had seen cases in which “people have survived much longer than this”. But her patrol is no longer actively looking for him.

Fossett, 63, the first person to circumnavigate the globe solo in a balloon and the holder of 115 aviation, speed and endurance records, disappeared on September 3 after taking off in a single-engine plane from a private airstrip to seek a site for a world land speed record attempt.

Dennis Belcher, the former head of the American Bar Association’s probate division, told The Times that if Mrs Fossett decided to have her husband declared dead, she could go to court and argue for an expedited ruling. The couple did not have any children.

But business partners or agents might have a financial interest in having him still legally alive, as income-generating agreements often terminate on death. He said court battles between parties who want a missing person declared dead and those who do not are common.

He cited a case he was recently involved in where a lawyer disappeared in his light aircraft over the sea. Neither his body nor the wreckage was ever found. A creditor wanted him declared dead as soon as possible. His family did not – his estate was declining in value because of a drop in the financial markets and they calculated that if they held off for several years, it would increase in value again. The parties spent 18 months in court. The man was eventually declared dead.

The massive search for Fossett also turned up six aircraft crash sites in the mountainous expanse of western Nevada and eastern California, with some dating back to the early 1960s.

For more than a week after the crash sites were reported, one family hoped that a 43-year mystery had been solved. Charles “Chazzie” Ogle’s single-engine plane disappeared over the Nevada desert in August 1964, and his son - who was 4 at the time – thought that the Fossett search might finally offer some answers. William Ogle, 47, said that the tragedy had “hung over me my whole life”, but last week his hopes were dashed.

Searchers said four of the wrecks were already on file with federal officials and dated from the past 30 years – although the planes’ pilots have yet to be identified.

A fifth “wreck” turned out to not be a crash site but merely debris. The sixth was dated to 1961 – three years before Mr Ogle, a multimillionaire land investor, disappeared. “We’re very sorry, but we believe now that Mr Ogle’s plane was not among the ones we’ve found,” said Major Ed Locke of the National Guard.

Conspiracy theories

Internet explanations for Fossett’s disappearance include:

—He was shot down by the US Air Force for straying too close to “Area 51” in Nevada where the Pentagon tests new aircraft

—He is not missing at all, but being used by the US Air Force as a cover story. While pretending to look for him, the military has actually been searching for a missing nuclear weapon

—He has been abducted to test-fly a UFO