Warbird Information Exchange

Steve Fossett will be found one day in some some strange ways--- here a weird but seemilngy true story...

"Not aliens, but just as wierd. Back in the early 1970s, a T-42 Baron went missing on a VFR training flight one stormy night out of Cairns Army Air Field at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Just about everything we had, and that's a lot of helicopters and airplanes, went out on the search, or at least looked down while doing something else, including me. We're lucky nobody had a midair in the process.

No trace of the airplane was found in a constantly expanding circle going into Georgia and Mississippi. After about ten days, the sister of one of the students in the T-42 arrives with her husband, flying their Cessna 182. She meets with the base commander and tells him that her brother came to her in a dream, saying he was at an Indian camp and had a really bad headache, please come get him. She was treated with all respect and courtesy and provided with a map showing were some old Indian sites were, including some burial mounds over the border in Georgia. They took off, flew to that vicinity, looked down, and saw the Baron.

Not a happy ending, unfortunately. It appeared that a student had spun it, probably during single-engine practice, and they went straight down into tall trees. Her brother's head could have only hurt for an instant. It was easy to see the approximate center of rotation of the spin, because a tree was sticking up through it. The only way to see the wreck was looking straight down from directly above.

The Cairns rescue helicopter, call sign Flat Iron, got there post haste, while the sister and her husband were circling. Once they'd spotted the wreck, they relieved the 182, which was running low on fuel, and landed some distance away to let off the rescue team since there was no way to land near the crash site itself. The Flat Iron pilot went back up to guide the ground party to the wreck and had a devil of a time relocating it.

Some hunter will find Fossett someday or a camper will spot debris from his plane on a shore."

HGUCSU,

The only wierd aspect of this story is the dream. The rest of it happens all the time in that part of the country. After more than 20 years of flying search missions for CAP, I can attest to that.

A British couple was flying a Cherokee VFR across north Georgia, getting into progressively lower ceilings and rising terrain. They were flying up a valley, and either flew into clouds or found themselves unable to climb fast enough to avoid the hillside in front of them. They flew into the hillside at about 200 feet above the treetops in the valley, making an almost invisible hole as they went in. The wreck site was not visible except through the hole they made when they went in. CAP looked for two weeks, and had called off the search. They were found by a local college biologist looking for plant samples about a week after the search ended.

There are many similar circumstances that have occurred over that area. The heavily wooded terrain is very adept at swallowing up crashed aircraft.

Yes, Steve Fossett will be found someday, and probably by the hunter you describe.

Walt

Back in 1978 or 79, the SC CAP searched for a 172 that went missing on a flight from Dillon, SC to Myrtle Beach, SC. What's that , about 80 miles???, that aircraft has not been found to this day.

They never found the F9F that the Whittingtons owned either did they?

John

The F9F was here at the Wings Over Houston show, left for Florida and was never seen again. On the other hand, I vaguely rememember a story in the last couple of years that someone ran across it in the Louisiana swamps, or did I dream that one up? Somebody help me here, severe case of CRS !

I would urge anyone who is flying most any cross country trip to give thought and planning to survival and search and rescue if you have a forced landing. In the Fossett case, that country is very desolate and hot. If not actually filing a flight plan with FAA, then he could have mapped out what route he planned on a sectional or road map and left a copy with his host, when he did not return they would have some idea of where to look. This also take some of the burden off the search people as they can exclude much of the area initially. When I fly direct from Aspen to Midland, I open my flight plan on takeoff, then call in once east of Independance Pass, then update once out of the mountains and on the way to TCC, where I would close the first leg and refile the 2nd. Thus the focus could be on a 100 mile leg, not just anywhere in a vast state. I know pilots that think a flight plan is something only for IFR, but it is one of the few times when you can get free insurance. Some people substitute "flight following", which is ok but not fool proof. Of course you need some survival supplies, in Steve's case WATER, but if you can't be found even a couple of gallons won't last forever. It takes very little weight and space to carry a few simple things like a signal mirror, firestarter, etc. Cellphones won't work, but a small handheld com might save you and your passengers. Of course you have to survive the impact which likely didn't happen in Steve's case even in a light plane that should have had a good ch ance. I have done lectures on Mt. flying and in so many of the accidents, there is no flight plan on file, even pilots carry their wife and small children, and sometimes they push on into bad weather. It can be so sad and unecesary.Doing all the right things may not be a guarantee, but taking foolish chances with other peoples lives is really bad.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I would guess Steve did not survive the accident, but let's say he did. Maybe he ran a tank dry, went down with some injury, perhaps a broken leg. With only a little water, no food, no signaling devices, and no one one knows where to look; odds are slim. Now let's say he left a map or route, maybe said he was going to overfly certain lake beds in a south to north circle. Say he had several big bottles of water on board, maybe a few energy bars. And some way to signal; at the very least one those shiny space blankets, a mirror, firestarter, at best a handheld. Now his odds may be better as long as it doesn't snow, he might last a week and there be a chance of finding him.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I agree with Bill, completely. When the F-4 was first returned to flight, the decison was made to leave the seat kits empty. Afterall we were flying in relative safety in the lower 48 and everyone has a cell phone. After flying on the jet from Washigton DC to Birmingham and then on to San Antonio, I realized how wrong we were. After some discussion we decided that we needed to put at least some of the survival basics that the military and the Boy Scouts felt was necessary for basic survival. We now carry a couple of liters of water (which we change out annually ), flashlight, batteries(uninstalled), matches, signal mirror, poncho, parachute cord, multitool, granola bars( again, changed annually ), space blanket,USCG approved signal flares, and a few other goodies. These items were selected for specific reasons, most of which cann be found in the BSA Field Guide, a very useful publications. It is a very well written primer in fieldcraft, so simple a young preteen can understand it ! Just try to get one of those focused on anything for more than 10 minutes !

Anyway, all of these things fit into a seat kit. Both the F-4 and TA-4 are fitted this way. As I told one of the pilots when he asked me what we were doing, " We just got finished puttin a bunch of stuff you'll never see in the seat kit ". Hope that statement holds true for a very long time.

Rick, cell phones are great for calling your broker while shopping at Neiman Marcus. Not much good in the boonies. Many of them won't even work on top of Aspen Mt.! The jets are a special case; do you always file IFR? If so you have ready flight following, and it at 30,000 feet time to call mayday on the way down. I guess your big problem is surviving a belly landing at those speeds. But you might as well carry some stuff just in case. Some of the accidents are so sad, a man from Dallas who took his whole family into the mountains coming to Aspen, in a Piper, deteoriating winter weather and NO FLIGHT PLAN. They survived the crash pretty well; give the guy guts if not brains; when he realized what he had done he tried to hike out, and was killed in an avalanch. Only because the rental plane had a fresh ELT was the family finally found alive days later. That was some luck as ELT rarly work as the antenae make break off in the crash.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Years ago I read a statistic about ELT's. I think it was from AOPA. IT said that ELT's have an 80% false alarm rate and a 30% activation rate. That was under an old TSO. They have since upgraded the standard so that may not be true for the newer units but, it is an interesting stat.

Someone needs to make the call to TIGHAR !!!

they can find anyone

(before the trail gets cold)

Steve

Steve, it just dawned on me that all our effort in Afgan could have been done under contract by Tighar. Might not find the tall bearded one, but it would be cheaper and probably more entertaining. Cubs, you may be correct about the ELT rates, but I think it is the wrong emphasis to look at reasons not to carry one, apart for it being a FAA rule. We don't expect our house to burn, but we buy fire ins. An ELT, for about $300 gives you a chance to be found, IF it works. A big problem is the antena breaking off in the crash. In the case of the Dallas folks, they went down in deep snow in a gulley, no major injuries. But no way could they walk out and no one missed them. The ELT worked and the satelite reported a hit. The next day another hit, luckily the CAP or FAA or whoever didn't ignore it. Then I think the lodge responded when they had not checked in. The signal only got out of the gulley when the sat was right overhead and quit sending at night when the battery got too cold, only to resume in daytime warmth. They were found alive in 4 or 5 days, except for the pilot, and soley because of the ELT signal.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

doh

WORK ALMOST ANYWHERE!!!

Rick,

I also attended that air show in 1991 and photographed the Cougar a day before it's disappearance. It had supposedly gone for a flight over the Gulf when it vanished. To this day, I don't believe it was ever found.

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Roger Cain
www.sfahistory.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Stearman/


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