Varifrank: Fossett

Fossett

Reasonable Rational Questions that outstanding:

1. Was the engine running at the time of the crash?

2. Why was he traveling south from Barron Hilton's place? On his way to Mojave? Why didn't anyone know that was his plan, including anyone at Mojave?

3. ELT's are triggered when aircraft undergo G-loads. I know, I've set off my fair share of ELT's back when I was a student pilot( Let's just say that if Cessnas came with tailhooks, I would have perfected the 20ft. short field landing. I had a hell of a time with the concept of "flair" in landing. I just slammed the thing down on the numbers. My instructor cured me of this by making me fly along the runway at 10 feet, and then doing about 10 hours on short grass fields, so I got over my 'carrier landings'. ). So where was the ELT on this aircraft and what is its state? It's not impossible that it didn't go off, but why exactly?

4. Where is the body? My guess is its 6 feet buried into the mountainside or has been ingested by the wildlife in the area over the past year. The fact that the first thing detected of the crash site was his personal clothing items, seems to back up that hypothesis.

5. Why didn't they find the wreck at the time of the accident? Well, you have to know where to look. Without a flight plan and some idea where you were going, your search area is 360 degrees in every direction as far as the aircraft in question can fly. In rough numbers, lets say the Citabria can fly for about 5 hours at 100 mph. If you don't know what direction the pilot was flying and you are flying over the empty and untraveled terrain of the Owens valley, the High Sierra and western Nevada topography then there are literally thousands of square miles to search and in that area, you have to find something about the size of a king-size bedsheet, only the bed sheet has been ripped to shreds and buried partially by rocks and dirt. Remember, Aircraft that crash don't always look like aircraft when the crash, they end up looking like trash and theres a tremendous amount of trash and debris in that part of the world. Aircraft that hit the sides of mountains are usually covered with dirt and rocks as well, which helps to hide them from the eyes of search pilots. Oh, and Search pilots don't go flying up next to mountain tops in the eastern sierra unless they have a good reason to go look there, because, as you can see, its dangerous.

It's entirely likely that:

- Mr. Fossett died prior to the crash. This may shock non-pilots, but aircraft that are correctly trimmed by the pilot will fly without input from the pilot until something changes, like they run out of gas or, as it appears to be in this case, hit something hard. The most famous examples are the Payne Stewart accident, or the B-24 "Lady Be Good", both examples flew on for hundreds of miles without a pilot in command.

- Oxygen deprivation. He was at high altitude, I don't know if he was using any supplemental oxygen. If he was, there is a fair chance it didn't work. If he wasn't, then his physical state at the time is a prime suspect.

- He was caught in a phenomenon known as a mountain wave, or "rotor' which he was fighting at the time of the accident. I was in one of these off of Catalina Island once, it was the most frightening thing I've ever been in. For 15 minutes after we departed Catalina Airport, we were not so much an aircraft as we were simply a 'leaf in the wind'. We had absolutely no control over the aircraft. If we tried to go towards the ocean, the aircraft plummeted towards the sea, if we tried to turn towards the island, (Catalina is just is a big mountain sticking out of the ocean) it would climb like a banshee but not in a good way, it was climbing directly for the island, which being hard, was something we wanted to avoid. We just went flinging around the air like a swimmer inside the tube of a big wave in the ocean. The best we could do was to try to stay in the middle of the 'tube' which was not good, but it was better than the other two options. Once we crossed the south end of the island, it stopped as suddenly as it started. My friend, whom I was flying with that day( he was a 'Raven' in Vietnam ), said it was the most frightened he had ever been in a small plane. We actually watched the wings on the little Cessna 140 we were in - flex. When we departed Catalina Airport, There was no sign, no clouds, there was nothing to tell us that the wave was there.

- The most likely cause of the accident is that he simply flew into the side of the mountain. Its easier to do than you think, especially if you are a high time IFR pilot who is flying VFR. Overconfidence is a constant killer of pilots.

I'm not willing to entertain any crazy "Fossetts Still Alive" theories. Did he run away and is living his life on Tahiti? I honestly would love to think so, but I think Mr. Fossett met his end in the air over California and is buried on a mountainside.

I only hope that now that the wreck has been found that his family can find the peace they have been looking for.

Update: Steve has been found at the site, as expected. Rest In Peace, my friend.

Posted @ October 02, 2008 11:31 AM | Current Affairs

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