Talk:Steve Fossett

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Too much unnecessary detail?

In the section about the finding of the wreckage and his body parts? This whole section

This fact does not explain how the ends of the aerobatic harness he was wearing could have come free from the 5-point cam-lock, considering that their release requires the cam-lock knob be twisted a quarter-turn. Manipulating the cam-lock could not have been accomplished by someone other than Fossett. According to interviews by the Discovery Channel (who provided a camera crew the day after his FAA ID and $1,005 were found by a hiker) the one fact that disputes the official findings was the location of hardware that had been part of the pilot's harness. Pilots who knew him were interviewed by the Discovery Channel for a January 2009 documentary on the incident in which they expressed certainty that the harness could have been released by any animal that may have moved his body. The reason for their opinion pertains to the mechanism (twisting) required to release the harness and the fact that no other hardware was attached. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this harness was in use or being worn at the time of the crash.

Seems over the top. Besides - if you have seen the footage of the wreckage, heavily mangled and crumpled, and no large pieces surviving, it is not beyond belief that the force of the crash could easily have destroyed the harness. And don't get me talking about the programme I watched last night (The Sierra Nevada Triangle, on Channel 4) in which a Mammoth Lakes Park Ranger insisted that bears wouldn't have moved his body/body parts and that the explanation for his remains being found so far from the crash site was that he had crawled up there. Puh-lease! And this ranger said he had seen the crash wreckage. There was no way anyone would survive a crash that did that to the plane. 12:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)86.148.48.248 (talk)

That ranger said the bears are too lazy to travel that far, unless there were some in the area. You have to remember, there were probably other wild animals in the area that could have gotten to him. And I've seen people survirve stranger things. Such as that person who was buried for 12 days in a collapsed building in the Haiti quake last month. Cra sh Underride 03:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could or could not?

Is the passage "in which they expressed certainty that the harness could have been released by any animal" quoted properly? In either event, it is not clear to me what is being suggested... SalineBrain (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Crowdsourcing possibly successful?

Does anyone know whether the crowdsourcing effort WOULD have detected the crash site by computer program scan, once the actual crash site location was known? Wouldn't this be of interest to searchers for the future? SalineBrain (talk) 18:53, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mechanical Turk search

I took part in the Mechanical Turk search and spotted a wrecked plane in one of my squares. As well as flagging it up I contacted the search organisers by email. I heard nothing back (unsurprising as they were busy), but much later heard on the news that through the crowdsourcing, several new crash sites had been identified, as well as quite a few planes already known to have come down in the area and whose location had already been established by the authorities. My questions are - was anything done with the knowledge from the crowdsourcing search about the new crash sites? Were they investigated on the ground? How many new crash sites were discovered by the collaborative effort? 81.156.125.126 (talk) 15:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Zeppelin pilot licenses

I've moved this comment from the article:

The previous statement requires additional clarification. No special "license" is needed to fly the Zeppelin NT other than a standard, "Lighter-Than-Air, Airship" rating (under United States jurisdiction.) There are well in excess of 30 pilots worldwide with current, airship ratings, both at the time Fosset was flying and now.[1]

The number may be 17 or 30, but the source says 17. Is there a source for 30? Will Beback talk 22:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, here's the source used in the article: Steve Fossett: Always “Scouting for New Adventures” Part 2, dated October 2006. Will Beback talk 00:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]