Steve Fossett Aviation Record Holder Missing
 

One thing that bothers me- he didn't file a flight plan that doesn't make any sense.

Still no sighting.:(

It would be an ironic twist if he met his fate sightseeing after all the big risks he has taken. Hopefully he beats the odds again.

One can only hope but what bothers me most, he didn't file a flight plan..

If he is flying VFR, which thousands of private pilots fly daily, they aren't required to file a flight plan.

Doesn't look good. Or he could planning another big "something" and this is another attention-getter...

I agree. It doesn’t look good at all.

As for the flight plan issue. I’d bet most of his time in the 8KCAB are flown without a flight plan. Nothing new, nor odd about it.

Hope he didn't drift too far south and get caught up in Texas' opening day of dove season.

I'm plane dumb (as opposed to plain dumb): do planes not have EPIRB or its equivalent? If not, wtf? I also thought Fossett had a $100K watch that was like an EPIRB but relayed 'health' data if something went wrong?

I just don't understand how a 25 ft. sailboat can be found floundering in 200K sq. miles of ocean but they are having to do a grid search for a plane in a 600 sq. mile area.:confused:

Good point.

The Breitling Emergency has EPIRB but I think it is manually deployed.

I bet 300 knts into a butte would set it off. I just keep hearing this sheriff or something speaking on the news about this cutting edge technology they are using to search for him that has to do with identiifying color out of the desert background.

Perhaps the watch was damaged?

FLIR, with the old tech you could see a dick on a donkey @ 1000 meters I can only imagine the hi res today. If he is dead its going to be tough to find him since he would be desert temp.

Yes, you have to unscrew an antenna that is where the watch lugs are and the pull it out to start the beacon. If he got knocked out or the watch got damaged, of course, it wouldn't work.