Adventurer Steve Fossett Lost in Nevada
You can help search satellite photos for plane crash
by Charles Coughlin
An American adventurer, Steve Fossett, has disappeared while flying over Nevada. Every great nation needs heroes and adventurers –men who climb the tallest mountains, swim the English channel or who fly around the world in experimental planes. Unfortunately every adventure has a risk and Steve Fossett has likely crashed an airplane somewhere in Nevada while preparing for a land speed record. Since Fossett’s disappearance, satellite photos of the area Fossett was flying over have been run through computer software and the general public is invited to help search for Mr. Fossett here. You need to log onto their system. (This is intended so that only serious individuals help in the search.)
Fossett reportedly had food and water in the plane sufficient to last two weeks. Most survival experts recommend that victims of a crash landing should stay next to the wreckage since a crashed plane will be more visible from the air than an individual walking through brush or a forest. Fossett is an expert pilot and there’s an excellent chance he could glide his plane to a relatively safe landing after an engine failure.
A computer program has picked out photos with angular shapes in them. The only trouble is there are over 80,000 photos as of the time of this article. A good pair of eyes can tell if a plane is in the picture. Fossett’s plane had a blue and white paint job. If just 1,000 readers of this article will help the search, they would only need to look at 80 photos each to help finish the search. So far, six previously unknown airplane crash sites have been found thanks to this new technology. (more…)