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[UPDATE 1-October, 2008: Steve Fossett’s pilot’s license and other items found near Mammoth Lakes, California. Read the story and a link to the area where they were found in Google Earth.]
[UPDATE 14-September: A new KML has been posted with a strip of DigitalGlobe imagery. I’ve updated the links below to include both sets of imagery with red borders outlining the imagery. Don’t bother looking outside the new imagery. The GeoEye imagery is turned off by default – you have to find the folder to turn it on, most of the comments below are from the GeoEye imagery. It would be better if everyone went to the new story I’ve posted and started your comments here: New Steve Fossett Search Imagery]
[UPDATE: I’ve made a new network link 
which has the imagery, but also includes a red border around it. This will hopefully avoid confusion since some people are looking beyond the available search imagery.]
As most everyone knows by now, famed adventurer Steve Fossett went missing last Monday, September 3rd, after leaving a small airport in west Nevada in a small single-engine airplane with blue, white, and yellow colors on it. The area of Nevada where he went missing is very rugged terrain, and so far the search and rescue aircraft have not been able to locate the missing plane. New satellite imagery of the area taken by GeoEye has been taken. Amazon has produced a Help Find Steve Fossett web site which automatically provides you with an image to look at in the search area of new satellite imagery. You have to sign up and give your address to help with the search. If you see something in the small area which looks suspicious you’re asked to flag it. The page also provides you with a network link which includes recently taken satellite imagery of the search area. You can load the network link in Google Earth and start looking over the recently taken imagery for a portion of the search area yourself. Or copy and paste the coordinates you were given to get a better look at that spot.
This is an approach to more rapidly search a large area of imagery using many eyeballs of people around the world. A similar technique was used to search for Jim Gray, a Microsoft scientist who went missing on his sailboat off the coast of California. Unfortunately, in the case of Jim Gray nothing was found. In this case, if Steve Fossett did in fact stay within the region of imagery provided, someone should find some sign of the plane in the imagery (unless the plane managed to go into water and sink – I was surprised how many small lakes there are in the search region).
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
I’ve gone through about 50 hits so far.. it would be much easier to look at the small image provided if Amazon were to make the background of the page black instead of white.
It’s very neat to see the “total hits” number drop rapidly as people are helping out with this. It’s gone down by about 1500 in the time I’ve been looking.
What a marvellous idea for enhancing a major search.
Let’s hope we can find this veteran of so many other dangerous adventures..
The plane had distinctive colors. How hard would it be to turn the raw image data into a color spectrum and then search the data for the specific blue and/or yellow of the plane? This should lessen the number of places to look.
How do we submit planes we find in google earth if we dont use mturks directly?
38.411636,-119.405594
What a great use for Google Earth and satalitte imagery in general!
A friend of mine has spotted something at 38.2682163855, -119.443324293 – anyone else think that looks like a plane?
I wish that the provided imagery was higher resolution. It looks like some of it is lower res. than the default GE imagery. The spot Amazon is pointing at right now (38.381424,-119.372635) happens to be where I was flying my hang glider the day before Fosset went missing, so I have looked at that terrain up close. The imagery is too coarse and dark to do a decent job of spotting objects like a part of a plane.
In spite of that, I applaud the effort, and hope it evolves into a powerful approach to search and rescue.
to me it looks as if the total hits is going up, not down…
and i wish google would have done this for james kim when he got lost in the wilderness…
my 1st thought bakc then was to get google to do just what they are doing now for fosset…
kim didn’t want to be in dangerous situation… fosset is a thrill seeker… he chose to be in that pilot seat…
I see a plane shape at 38.523575, -119.316343
“Quote:Posted by: Jimmy Lemon at September 9, 2007 03:05 PM
A friend of mine has spotted something at 38.2682163855, -119.443324293 – anyone else think that looks like a plane? ”
Worth others possibly checking to see if this might be something.
(note : pasteing these numbers directly into the fly to box directly takes you to the location )
Everyone please check out 38.364353,-119.233252
There is a large white mass which stands out plus some kind of pipe looking object.
in the news they said that 6 wrecks that were unknown have been spotted so far by the involved search teams… must be disappointing to spot a plane wreck only to discover it hasn’t been reported and left out there to rot, and that 6 times!
and the overlay isn’t very precise, the 2 screenshots i upoaded show that the same building complex is a few hundred meters (390m/1280ft) apart, one picture is the normal google footage, the other is the new update network link footage.
new google earth network link footage:
http://idisk.mac.com/cordfredericromberg/Public/Pictures/Skitch/Google_Earth_Plus-20070910-020203.jpg
old google earth footage:
http://idisk.mac.com/cordfredericromberg/Public/Pictures/Skitch/Google_Earth_Plus-20070910-020255.jpg
distance:
http://idisk.mac.com/cordfredericromberg/Public/Pictures/Skitch/380m-20070910-020525.jpg
Is there a way to obtain all the image tiles? I’d like to run a matching algorithm over all the images but I obviously can not do it through the amazon interface…
Looking at my http requests, I see google earth accessing the directory:
http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/fossett/geoeyecolor/GeoEye_RGB/imagery/
For example:
http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/fossett/geoeyecolor/GeoEye_RGB/imagery/032030101_12.jpg
but unfortunately I can’t grab all the images in there…(tried with wget, but can’t give it a “*” regular rexpression :(….
The other option is if somebody (Google Earth team??) could explain to me how the image tile names are enumerated, I could access the tiles that way too.
Thanks!
I’ve found a plane. But i’ve made a program to scan google maps images from the fosset kml provided by Amazon and to identity lighter spots.
Here are the links (I still don’t know how to convert the file names to coordinates)
http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/fossett/geoeyecolor/GeoEye_RGB/imagery/0302032312_7.jpg (plane)
Some other “white spots”
0302003001_3.jpg
0302003312_5.jpg
0302010210_14.jpg
0302011023_8.jpg
0302013132_12.jpg
0302021130_5.jpg
0302032312_7.png
coincidentally there was a very interesting article in wired recently on this subject (the issue with marta stewart on the cover). It told of the search for missing IT expert who went missing just outside san fransico bay on his boat… they never found him, but because he worked on things like terraserver all his hooked up IT colleagues he worked with over the years used satellite and googlemaps to search for him… this is where they got the idea to the same for fosset…
search for grey and wired
Looks like a possible plane or debris at
38.203021,-119.092020. The size is right.
I can also see (or imagine?) the letters
SOS to the north of the debris.
Check this out:
38°19′13.37″N
118°59′23.87″W
38.191337,-118.592387
Nobody seems to have mentioned this but if you find something suspicious then turn off the overlay and if it is still there then it cant the be plane in question. (note that the overlay is not quite in the right place).
I wonder how hard it would be to design a program that does some sort of image subtraction and highlights any differences between the two images. I would be useful for so many things when it comes to satellite imagery including spotting moving objects, new development, changes in vegetation etc etc. Of course seasonal changes could make it quite difficult for some areas.
look at 38.481760,-118.984410
hhmm, i don’t think a scan would do, because a car-like “white-spot” is about 5 pixels big. a scan would be too inprecise
btw, if you take a closer look at the plane:
http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/fossett/geoeyecolor/GeoEye_RGB/imagery/0302032312_7.jpg
the area with the plane looks manipulated. and, considering there is no location for the “plane”, we can’t inspect this plane-like white-spot
38.502274,-119.174881 ???
This is an excellent idea! Its also interesting to see literally 100% current imagery going straight into Google Earth. It would be really great if the combined efforts of all of the users was able to make a real difference in the search.
Quote: Posted by: Jimmy Lemon at September 9, 2007 03:05 PM “A friend of mine has spotted something at 38.2682163855, -119.443324293 – anyone else think that looks like a plane?”
The plane-looking shape mentionned by Jimmy Lemon does NOT appear when disabling the overlay.
The shape is thus recent.
The coordinates are slightly different when measured in the normal Google Earth image : 38.271507,-119.443766
38.370584N 119.093323W
white image
Quote: Posted by: Chris West at September 9, 2007 05:53 PM : “I see a plane shape at 38.523575, -119.316343”
The shape found by Chris West effectively looks like a plane but it is already present on Google Earth images without the overlay.
Coordinates without the overlay : 38.522059, -119.318390
Is there any date and time for this satellite imagery? I mean: Are we looking for a plane in flight or for a grounded plane/debris?
38.572311,-118.985367
What about this plane:
38.278371,-118.97447
Though the size is not right 🙂
Hi all,
i find something at 38.405791,-118.513422
Looks like a plane shape but how i can report it directly?
maybe easier if to look at crashed planes first before you search them
http://webhampton.com/ehvaa/Cessna%20at%20hwy%20barn%201.JPG
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/07/pilotSH200706_600x600.jpg
explicit imagery: http://www.viggy.com/news/images/soundrya_accident_big.jpg
http://www.aircraftwrecks.com/pages/c172.htm
http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/SystemSafety/Newsletters/tp185/1-99/images/066.jpg
http://members.aol.com/nyrocketscience/gallery/flying/z_crash.jpg
i recommend aircraftwrecks.com , it shows how hard it is to find a small wreck.
Since most planes of this type can crash surprisingly fast if something goes wrong, you can bet on lots of small debris, which will be hard to spot in vegetation areas.
If the plane still had a lot of fuel during the crash it would probably start to burn, meaning, you have to looking for dark greyish spots, which is nearly impossible with these kind of images.
The new imagery looks quite dizzy, the contrasts are low, google can do better.
i don’t hope it is a new viral campaign for them
I think it is, unfortunately, a bit senseless to search for a white plane.
If fosset crashed on the ground (and thats unfortunately likely since he did not even made an SOS call), The place ot the accident it will more likely be a black burned place with fire around!
Has someone tried to search for trails of smoke? I think this would be more worthwile, but difficult, since the maps are mostly green or brown.
I’ve found the location
http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/fossett/geoeyecolor/GeoEye_RGB/imagery/0302032312_7.jpg
is
38°28’55.72″N 119°24’18.15″W
The idea of the scan is to reduce the number of images to look for.
Nice Idea Steve is a Legend we must find him!
What about 38°39’20.70″N 119° 6’44.90″W ? It looks like a shadow of a plane.
check out: 38.7405642565,-119.41236664
Benni,
I’ve thought that too, but like you said, it is difficult to detect smoke, but if you see some plane crashes on google earth (http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlcat74/Airplane-crash-sites.htm) you can usually identify the plane shape and it doesnt get all black or burned.
For http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/fossett/geoeyecolor/GeoEye_RGB/imagery/0302032312_7.jpg at
38°28’55.72″N 119°24’18.15″W,
this one is also a plane appearing only on the overlay.
However, it appears to be intact and may be one of the search and rescue plane or any small aircraft in flight.
I’m not a high-tech person, but I am a prayerful one. Checking the ravines in the area could be very wise.. An upclose view of them within say a 50-88 mile radius of where he went down.
maybe an burned impact zone..?
no white, but black:
Just below
38.344745, -119.005677
buried by an avalanche?
38°51’56.03″N 120°05’49.71″W
Beware that if you search outside of the area swept by the satellite, you are not going to return anything of value.
Dennis, your avalanche is “just” 35 miles short of the area… 🙁
“Some strange thing” lat=38.770714373, lon=-119.186014132
Even if I’m a little bit confused due to the fact that some sightings mentioned in this blog are outside of the updated image – but anyway, I would like to ask for comments about this location GE 38.043949, -119.472109
38.520126,-118.949661
looks like a plane by the fork in the riverbed.
Look at 38*25*23*91 N , 119*15*50*92 W . It looks like a crash landing “strip” with something that might resemble an aircraft at the end of the markings. Please take a look!
Check also:
38*25*58*41* N , 119*16*32*97* W . Looks like a plane wreckage on top of a hill or something.
38°39’3.08″N and 119°11’40.27″W. Looks like an impact with smoke rising from it. Any suggestions on it?
Also, 38*17*16*99 N , 119*13*54*86 W . Looks like debris in the middle of the lake.
38.69841,-119.03735
Hello,
There is a plane-like white shape at the following coordinates. They intersect at an apparent crossroads, hence I was of the opinion that Mr Fossett may have used one of the roads as a landing strip.
38 Deg 36′ 53.58″ N
119 Deg 26′ 46.26″ W
Best regards,
Matthew Illsley
Market Warsop, England
I am sure that I have found a plane. The coordinates are 38degrees29’11.96″ N and 118degrees59’38.83″W.
38.385466, -119.250761
looks like aircraft wreckage. If you toggle between GeoEye and old images, you’ll see lots of erosion. The structure looks creepy though.
0820780058, -119.3269544361726
38.381809, -119.016022
I just got a confirmation, the plane at
38°28’55.72″N 119°24’18.15″W is the rescue plane and not Steve’s.
i like the 38 Deg 36′ 53.58″ N, 119 Deg 26′ 46.26″ W location. it looks very promising. at least it’s a plane of some sort that wasn’t there before the new footage was taken…
new footage screenshot: http://idisk.mac.com/cordfredericromberg/Public/Pictures/Skitch/Google_Earth_Plus-20070910-225432.jpg
old footage screenshot: http://idisk.mac.com/cordfredericromberg/Public/Pictures/Skitch/Google_Earth_Plus-20070910-225534.jpg
pls look at this:
37.930983, -118.939697
It is look (maybe) like an landing line
Hi, was just wondering whether any objects that are seen during the image search can be reported on this site…or is there an official site where objects of interest can be posted for those conducting the search?
Thanks,
Damien Sass (Germany)
Hi, was just wondering whether any objects that are seen during the image search can be reported on this site…or is there an official site where objects of interest can be posted for those conducting the search?
Thanks,
Damien Sass (Germany)
38.562698,-119.327316
Obviously a white plane of the right size. Not sure if it’s flying or on the ground.
A very very small white dot, but might be a stone as well:
38.666934,-119.15298
38°33’44.30″N
119°19’37.17″W
Is that what you are looking for, that plane thingy lying in the middle of the page I’m looking at?
A very very small white dot, but might be a stone as well:
38.666934,-119.15298
SOS sign at 38°32’32.06″N,118°55’54.27″W (on MTurk layer) and possible plane wreckage at ~50 meters right from the sign (…also fresh marks on the ground)
I liked this one
38.523575, -119.316343
Someone else in this forum found it and I looked at their coordinates….out of the few I have checked it looks reasonable for a plane shape.
38°27’48.04″N,119°16’40.49″W
I don’t know what the white areas beneath this coordinate are.
I think it is too small for a plane but maybe someone could have a look.
38.12377870773805,-119.4579852173787
It’s just a little dot hidden by trees I think.
It’s color is whiter than anything sorrounding it, maybe it’s something…
I also checked that it’s not in the old footage.
Kind Regards,
Chris (Berlin/Germany)
I put some of the images with “ligther spots” that I scanned and their adjacent ones on the following website:
http://jcppn.sourceforge.net/fossett.html
I still don’t know how to convert the filename to coordinates, but I hope it helps.
I didn’t see this one mentioned.
38.5624N,119.327W
make sure that you use http://s3.amazonaws.com/fossett/geoeye-color.kml
look at pointer 39.33 40 82 N /120 .02.34.33 w
an image that looks like a plane I want someone
to check this out just in case it,s him please let me know at my email I keep looking at the
image and i see color looks like blue and red
may God keep him safe until he is found .
I am looking for somewhere to post this –
Does this look like a charred plane to anybody else?
38°37’23.77″N
119° 6’58.87″W
Is this a fire trial from a crash?
38.330765,-119.040822
I hope not.
I found the plane at
lat=38.698428843, lon=-119.037364869
just now 11/09/07 15:00 hrs NZ time
cheers
reinhard
“Looks like a possible plane or debris at
38.203021,-119.092020. The size is right.
I can also see (or imagine?) the letters
SOS to the north of the debris.”
the SOS is in the old footage too… please guys, check the old against the new… also there’s a farm less than mile from that tip… if someone has the strength to build a huge SOS sign, he can also crawl a few hundred yard to a farm house to get to safety…
“SOS sign at 38°32’32.06″N,118°55’54.27″W (on MTurk layer) and possible plane wreckage at ~50 meters right from the sign (…also fresh marks on the ground)” by Aria Sol
2nd post about this… and NO, the SOS sign is OLD!!!!!!
“pls look at this:
37.930983, -118.939697
It is look (maybe) like an landing line” by Istvan Takacs
dude, your 20 miles out of the search area… you looked @ old footage that has no meaning whatsoever to the search….
i think it’s safe to say that any plane that is in one piece is not what we’re looking for… the sat footage was taken after steve could have been in the air. and if he had landed in one piece he would have been spotted by now. what we’re looking for is debris, maybe charred debris, which will not show up on this footage since the colors are not differentiated enough and the resolution is not enough to distinguish small debris from mother nature. the only chance we might have is if steve crashed @ a shallow angle and left a sliding path on the ground. if he crashed on rock or earth that isn’t easily moved and @ an angle higher than 45 degrees chances are slim it will show up on this footage….
frank taylor thinks he went into a lake or river which means even if we had super high resolution footage with super color we would never see/find anything…
overall this a good project and google & the CO. that supplies the satellite footage and all other parties involved learn a lot from this and maybe we might be of help the next time.
i think for searches like a stranded car in the wilderness or something like that it might be very useful in the future. the process of putting the footage up on the internet can be much improved. the mturk site is very time consuming and not very intuitive. it would be awesome to have a google earth plugin were one can mark a certain area, search it and then upload that search grid to a central server as marked and searched.
regardless, i hope that steve will be found. i keep my fingers crossed!
if in retrospective any of these hints from this project will have helped i think it will be huge step forward in helping many more people that get in trouble in remote areas.
Great idea utilizing Google Earth and the web community to search for Steve Fosset……BUT wouldn’t be a shape recognition software and an higher resolution be much more effective?
They use scanning the retina of your eye as your ID identification already…and one of these software “eggheads” should have modified this capability to find the plane by now…
just an idea….I would love to find this guy,but looking at an empty desert and small bushes is becoming frustrating….
Very clear light aircraft outline in desert at:
lat=38.5622925821, lon=-119.326974093
i think i found him? it’s a small plane landed in the middle of nowhere…
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1911/planedownbc7.jpg
please look at this
38.523039N- 119.214776W
Found this blog basically to vent my frustration. I am an aviation enthusiast and I recently heard about Amazon using Mechanical Turk in order to help find Fosset. I had never used MT but I gave it a shot. On the 5th image I looked at I would say I am about 90% sure I have spotted the rear section of what appears to be a C-47 or some other large cargo plane. I stared at it for about 10 minutes, then decided to hit HIT and create an account on Amazon to see if I could look at it more closely. I create an account and then Amazon shows me a completly different image when it takes me back to the original page. The “back” function is pointless as it reloads a new image each time, I tried searching my history for an hour but I can’t locate the image. The image is gone. Thanks for generating a new image after I clicked HIT Amazon, SO frustrated at the moment.
Hello what do you thing?
38°39’20.72″N,119° 6’45.52″W
looks like a plane or dust?
Here’s one that is recent and could be a plane nose-down, but the wingspan is much greater than Fossett’s plane. Has this been reported anywhere?
38°51′18.53″N 119° 19′26.54″W
@ reinhard. I found a plane on 38.698428843, -119.037364869 either. There’s definitely a plane on this coordinates, so you’re right.
smokeonit: sorry!
About the finding of Mawie at September 10, 2007 01:59 PM at position 38.043949, -119.472109,
I believe it is consistent with the shape and the size of a small plane (wingspan 25ft, slant measurement).
It is difficult to state if the shape is pre-existing in the normal image of the area ’cause it is in the shadow of the adjacent big cliff.
It is some 50 feet above a terrace at the bottom of a 1000ft cliff.
Position in the “normal” image is 38.049218°,-119.472941° or 38°02’57.19″N, 119°28’22.59″W
Incidentally, to everyone, the terrain elevations displayed by GE on the overlay image are wrong. It is actually the elevations for the normal image and they do not coincide. If you want to have an idea of the elevation or the slopes, you have to identify first the matching area in the normal image and then make measurements in this image.
The shape that looks like a “crash landing strip” spotted by Toby at September 10, 2007 02:52 PM,
already exists on the normal GE images.
Addition to my comment on Mawie’s finding at GE 38.043949,-119.472109 (at the bottom of a big cliff) :
That shape would be difficult to spot in the morning, due to the cliff shadow.
Why is the search area so small ??? If he had 4 to 5 hours of fuel available (as read), this aircraft travels at 90 to 120 kts so let’s say he had a range of 400 Nautical miles (minimum with a reserve).
We should be looking in a radius of 200 Nm from take off point (South tip of smith valley)
We are actually looking in an area that goes 10Nm North, 20 Nm East and 40 Nm south of take off point.
Come on Google Earth keep scanning !!!!!!!
Quote: Posted by: Toby at September 10, 2007 02:56 PM : “Check also:
38*25*58*41* N , 119*16*32*97* W . Looks like a plane wreckage on top of a hill or something.”
Could be. But it is already present on the normal image (location 38.433868°,-119.274654°), where it looks more like a rock.
Is it right that the Airplane looks like this one?
http://www.aviator.at/citabria.html
If so there is as much red as white.
So imho it´s easier to look for red structures.
Red is not the most spread colour out there….
I adjusted my monitor for maximum brightness and contrast so it should be easy to find red/(white) structures.
Has anybody informations about the correct design of this airplane?
There is a plane at 38.5624,-119.327. It is only on the overlay maps.
It could be a flying plane, but I couldn’t find a shadow.
It looks like it’s on the ground among trees. no landing damage is visible.
Fossett’s Citabria Super Decathalon is described as blue and white with orange stripes and blue sunburst designs on top of the wings.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september052007/fossett_search_090507.php
I think that the shape found by Pavaly (September 10, 2007 04:35 PM) at 38.381809, -119.016022 looks very much like a plane wreck.
However, it is laready present on the normal image.
Look at 38.415446,-119.21464
There is a plane. But he’s planing. Maybe could we look the trajectory.
Bye (scuse for the english of a french guy…)
Errr Hang on Google/Amazon.
I understand the principle of not leaving any grid square to chance, but the last set I have had to look at is in the middle of somebody’s yard just west of Smith. Its about the 10th image of ‘civilization’ I have had to scan. I don’t know where the Flying M ranch is either, but I bet it aint far away. Being a non-techie Brit surely there is some way of dishing out the images so that completely obvious ones like this are excluded from what is a relatively difficult task & so we scrutinise the ‘backwoods’ places first?
I did a bit of GIS interpretation for my degree course, and I’m sure that higher res images are generally available. Up to almost my 1000th image over 3 days and getting a bit ‘scrub blind’
I have been searching on google and have found something between fort bidwell and lake city its in the middle of upper lake on the east side amonst some trees. Its near the north west border nevada/california
Please look 38°10’12.47″N 119°24’21.12″W
Thanks
Campo,
the ARP of Flying M Ranch, Nevada, aerodrome is
38.612475°, -119.003518°
Suzanne,
the way you describe the position where you noticed something remarkable is not very useful.
GE displays in the status bar the geographic coordinates of the point underneath your mouse pointer.
You can also placemark the position using the little pin icon. The placemark dialog will allow you to copy and paste the position coordinates.
flying m ranch coordinates:
38° 36.738’N, 119° 0.080’W
to be more precise:
airfield:
38° 37.120’N, 119° 0.121’W
ranch:
38° 36.781’N, 118° 59.858’W
William Monti,
Thanks for your feedback that the flying plane at coordinates 38.482083°,-119.405064° is the rescue plane and not Steve’s.
could you also get a confirmation for these other 3 planes (which could be just rescue planes in flight):
– at 38.698410°,-119.037350° found by Chris (September 10, 2007 03:14 PM)
(also mentionned by reinhard eckloff at September 10, 2007 11:07 PM)
– at 38.486631°,-118.994129° found by Jack Horlock (September 10, 2007 03:43 PM)
– at 38.562211°,-119.327019° found by Stefan (September 10, 2007 05:41 PM)
Each has been reported more than once on this blog,
and it would be nice to let other “spotters” know in case there is nothing of interest there.
And of course, the twinjet at 38.278371,-118.97447 found by Stijn (September 10, 2007 10:09 AM)
is also to be ignored.
“Look at 38.415446,-119.21464
There is a plane. But he’s planing. Maybe could we look the trajectory.
Bye (scuse for the english of a french guy…)”
AGAIN: if you guys spot a plane in flight (in the air), it’s NOT steve fosset!
the footage is from after fosset disappeared. his plane must be on the ground in on piece or broken into many pieces or burned out and in many pieces or in a lake or river (making it invisible for us) or in the woods (making it invisible for us).
Please don’t post a siting of a plane that is up in the air. normally a small shadow can be seen in the vicinity telling us it’s in flight, but that’s only the case if sun is @ an angle of 10-15deg or less… otherwise the shadow is too far off and too faint.
And another thing………
I have read that the ‘help’ that all of us have been donating in terms of eyeballing images and reporting back things of interest may be confusing both us and the SAR teams on site.
Suggestion 1.-as a site/area is swept by the Nevada air/land teams is ticked off, how about an annotation is made onto the GE images to say ‘investigated/swept/of no interest’ by Nevada teams?
Suggestion 2. I think 8 plane wrecks have been located and investigated in this search, some by SAR teams, possibly some by GE users. Again, perhaps Amazon/Google can annotate these so people know:
A) What they might be looking for in terms of ‘crash site'(sadly seems unlikely that a whole plane is what we are after)
B) the ‘searching public’ can eliminate those already ‘found’ from their ‘looking area’
Silke,
for 38°10’12.47″N 119°24’21.12″W,
when comparing with the standard image
it looks as though this is what remains of a previously larger snow patch.
there’s a plane at
38°52’30.84″N 119°21’48.66″W
but i think it’s still flying…
Hi sorry about first post. I have seen something else 41 44′ 19,37″N 118 39′ 51, 90″W Elevation 7429ft will keeping searching on google earth and post whatever I find. I pray for the family they find him soon.
Hi, please check
38.43535,-119.0124
38.4313,-119.0420
This website will help people convert the degrees, minutes and seconds in Google to decimals for pasting into Google Earth. (Note, add the – before the longitude when pasting.)
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html
And I saw something at 38.167867,-119.366764 that looks like a nosed in aircraft.
Ok, I think there might be something of interest at:
38.661201, -118.977141
“wings” overlap edge of river and “tail” similar colour… airplane seems warped damaged with no nose. The river changes things a lot, so it is hard to tell if its just a sand bank.
Also, I agree with the idea of notating the images or using GE notation for spotted/discarded/irrelevant sites.
As for cutting out areas that seem to be of less importance for searching- I disagree. I think even in populated areas there could be a crashed plane behind a set of trees, a field, a barn, a river, etc. etc…
Hi there!
I have come across that plane at 38°52’30.84″N 119°21’48.66″W while working on mturk, but I did not write down the location. It seems to be airborne indeed . But considering the shape of the wingtips it looks more like a Piper Cup than the Decathlon we’re looking for.
I wonder when exactly the pictures where taken. Because if they were taken between take-off and the four hours the fuel lasted (that’s what I read in the media) then Steve Fossets plane might well be airborne on the pictures. Unfortunately then the location is more or less useless.
Furthermore I wonder why there are no new shots form the region around 38°24’N, 118°52’W. If I was to find a race track for a land speed record (again, thats what I read), I would look there.
There’s a link to photos of the plane in the wikipedia-article about Steve Fosset. Even though we don’t exactly know what it could look like after a possible crash. It could ne anything from intact to a black hole, I guess.
Is there a page with the lastet news on the search? And what was found by mturk so far?
Well, keep your fingers crossed!
Greetings!
Chris
(Germany)
I think I have found a clear plane-shape object not far from where fossett took off. Unfortunately I discovered in in Google Earth and not that crappy turk thing, so I can’t report it. Take a look at the following coordinates:
38°41’54.37″N
119° 2’14.29″W
Mario,
the plane at 38°41’54.37″N, 119° 2’14.29″W seems to be airborne.
@all:
Isn’t there a way to flag things within GE and share this with other users? Like setting a mark and naming it?
I am not that familiar with GE but this way the search would be more systematic and user wouldn’t post the same point several times here.
The best thing of course would be if the SAR teams would do the same thing and flag all sites that have been examined, what would result in a better cooperation between the GE users and the SAR teams.
I remember that some time ago it was possible for GE users to add places and name them, so it should not be impossible. Altough the SAR will be too busy to do that…
Greetings,
Chris
steve fosset serch: google earth place marks of the recently updated map imagary
2 possible place marks
38°43’4.55″N118°50’26.15″W looks like the reckage of a small plane
38°29’52.52″N119° 1’3.66″W looks suspicios maby an animal
@ Mario…..
yes, you are right:
38°41’54.37″N
119° 2’14.29″W
is definetely plane-shaped…
I think any plane that ist too white (should be white/blue/orange) is not the right one….
38°43’4.55″N118°50’26.15″W deffinatly the crumpled reckage of a plane on the hill turn on terraine and its more falable but could be an older existing plane crash one of 6 i think the SAR have found in the area
Btw imho it´s better to view the photos in the mechanical turk because it´s much faster loading than the GE.
I set the magnification in my IE7 to 180% so you can see the same as in GE and reach all the needed buttons with little scrolling with the mousewheel.
If you have an interesting place you can copy the coordinates into GE and take a closer look.
Dennis,
the plane at 38°52’30.84″N 119°21’48.66″W
appears to be airborne and twice as large as Steve’s Bellanca (here ~70ft)
Suzanne,
the object you spotted at 41 44′ 19,37″N 118 39′ 51, 90″W is completely outside of the search area.
You are looking at images much older than Steve’s flight.
Turn on and off the GeoEye-ikonos_1m overlay to appreciate the search area.
PS it would be very lucky to find him in this small 25 miles radius while he had fuel for a 200 miles radius flight.
Last: in the mechanical turk I got a combination of letters I can´t read. I tried several times but it seems that I don´t have enough imagination.
So I always press the Skip Hit button to get the next picture.
So it only needs a few seconds to change the picture.
But the information about the nothing in the picture cant be posted.
I definitely think they need to do some culling of the database of images.
I got two different images showing aircraft. They were on the ground at the Flying M ranch. I hope someone thought to look out back behind the hangers.
I know they just got this up real quick but I don’t think we need to be looking in Hilton’s backyard for him.
Mario,
the plane you found at 38°41’54.37″N 119° 2’14.29″W
is the same as the one
at 38.698410°,-119.037350° found by Chris (September 10, 2007 03:14 PM)
What could this be in 38.685224, -119.010967 ?
It´s to large for an truck or car
Chris, the plane you found at 38°52’30.84″N 119°21’48.66″W
is the same as the one found by Dennis at 38°52’30.84″N 119°21’48.66″W
(September 11, 2007 12:15 PM).
It has a wingspan of 70ft (about twice as big as the Bellanca).
It is 2.5nm from Rosaschi Airpark and 2.8nm from Farias Wheel Airpark, probably visual on both…
Brian Morrisson,
38°43’4.55″N, 118°50’26.15″W is outside of the search area.
Is this a plane, nose down?
38,33,40.27N,119,10,03.07W
38.41.21.48 N
119.26.57.55 W
There are some updates on the Steve Fossett page:
– A Pic of the actual plane:
http://stevefossett.com/pics/latest_news_page/SuperDecathlon.jpg
and some description of were he’s expected:
“The aircraft’s last confirmed position on Monday (3 September) at approximately 10:30 A.M. local time showed Steve west of Powell Canyon (south of Walker Lake and southwest of Hawthorne), proceeding east towards the canyon. This location is less than 30 miles SE from his point of departure / expected arrival. Steve was expected to return to the ranch around 11:00 – 11:30 AM. Although the Super Decathlon is capable of good performance at sea level, the predicted aircraft speed and climb rate must be adjusted down for the density altitude of this area in summer”
Thanks for the link.
Now we know what we are searching for 😉
Unfortunately most of the airplane is blue…
To get faster!!!! results maybe they should give 1-2 cent for every controlled picture and a bigger sum for the finder. Should be no problem with the mechanical turk.
Maybe this would be less expensive and faster than all the search flights….
Looks like this will last for a while in this tempo?
And maybe increase the search radius.
We need imagery all the way to Hawthorne then!
Hm like described in the above link looks like the last known point of his flight is far outside the search area…
30 miles SE!! from the starting point??
Looks like Hawthorne is a gigantic ammunition depot?
Maybe they don´t like to give out some high resolution Photos of this area…
So maybe we will search for nothing in the western area.
Bugger – that area is not covered by the Ikonos-Layer… no real need for searching, is there? (At least in Google Earth, the layer only extends to the west of the Takeoff/Landing strip…) any additional coverage of the area south-east?
Think this search doesn´t make sense any longer.
Wrong area.
The basic idea was imho very good.
The tempo should be raised, too, if there is still hope for the life of the missed person.
Think money is no problem for the people behind the search.
So now I must go to bed, midnight in Germany 😉
new infos:
http://www.stevefossett.com/
I have followed his disappearance through the news media and have yet to find anyone suggesting that he may have been kidnapped. Any one see a site that has suggested this possibility.
(sorry for my english:)
I dont understand….
If Mr. Fossett flyed to find a place for a ground speed record why try we found him in the hills and forest?
Hey doesnt anyone else find
38.661199, -118.977149
particularly interesting? just beyond the mountain from take off?, stuck in a river? I think I even see landing scud marks and debris channel coming onto the tail of the plane. It doesnt look like white sand, I think its just tilted over a tree or something. Please check it out!
This may be outside the search area, but can someone with better resolution that whay I have check out these coordinates? 39 16 48.99 N 120 17 48.85 W. It appears like an arrow pointing SE. Anyone who knows about hiking and/or getting lost would create an arrow for which a search party could look and know which direction the person is headed. Thanks!
Hi again!
Does anyone have the possibility of setting up a message board for this? Then it would be easier to comment on the different locations. Its getting confusing on this page…
“38°43’4.55″N118°50’26.15″W deffinatly the crumpled reckage of a plane on the hill turn on terraine and its more falable but could be an older existing plane crash one of 6 i think the SAR have found in the area. by brian morrisson”
dude! your looking over 4 miles outside the new sat footage…. (shake head)…
Don´t hope they shot him down thinking he wants to make a terroristic act… 😉
Wouldn´t surprise me if there were a lot of nuclear warheads there in Hawthorne.
It´s so near to Alamos..
Some random thoughts:…
Great Idea using Google Earth (GE).. Has anyone explored the scenario that Fossett himself might have used GE to plot sites to explore? If the Elevation Exaggeration was set to max (3)… The flat lake beds he was looking for, would have been much better defined. Did he leave his “laptop” behind or did he take it with him? If left behind… Take a look at history… If missing… He probably took it with him to explore (An even better sign that he was using some sort of computer mapping tool).
If you were Fossett, at a possible site, with a Citabria, Wouldn’t it be tempting to take a “practice run” a few feet off the ground at the possible course? Or even set down on the Lake Bed to check the soil conditions…
Unfortunately; Now you get to the possible “bad” scenarios..
What if the plane suddenly had a mechanical problem during a low level pass? What if a landing was attempted and what appeared to be hard packed salt was actually loose drift.(Tripping the plane). What if there were some unmarked electrical lines…
Just some random thoughts…But in light of the results so far, maybe they can point to areas to search where the light is better?
Sensor
Can somebody post up the coordinates of Powell Canyon please for us with no local knowledge.
Conflicting stories here-initially he was off looking for places (salt flats) to run his LSR tests (personally, if I was looking for salt flats I’d be heading south -south east, looking at the imagery; now it may be that he was just on a jaunt. Looking for a blue/white image on some of the areas of Nevada is going to be very difficult. No progress on the ‘marked/of no interest sites’?
thnx joe for the link and the info. from that info it looks like it’s very probable that whatever happened is @ least 10 miles east of the eastern end of the new SAT footage avaiable to GE users right now.
i did a little illustration with the info from joe’s post:
http://idisk.mac.com/cordfredericromberg/Public/Pictures/Skitch/GE_illustration-20070912-012905.jpg
which clearly shows where we would need SAT footage.
to me it looks like he was headed towards the “whiskey flat reservoir”! is that a location suited for straight high speed testing??? does anyone know which locations in that area are well known for speed record attempts???
thnx again joe.
2nd opinion wanted please.
Thought I’d have a scour of the ‘sandy area’ sw of Flying M-just on the off chance.
Someting not quite ‘natural’ @ 38 25 11 61N 118 45 17 14W. Wrong shape, but not the same colour (brighter) than background veg-on my screen at least. Probably sunlight/camera angle etc
I tried to make sure this was not already posted but can someone else take a look at this:
38 16′ 16.24″ N, 119 03′ 30.23″ W
I think I see some blue and it seems close to the right size but it may not even be a plane.
Being a retired Pilot and having flown the Arctic and North America including Mexico and most of Africa, I find it weird that no Emergency Locator Beacon or 9508 Motorola Satlellte phone was heard from. Given that scenarion, I would say there is not much chance that he survived. Having worked S&R and also an ex jumper, if by chance he went into the tree’s (tall ones)you would have to fly right over the top of the site to see anything. I hope I’m wrong.
38.661199, -118.977149 does look very intresting, and possable
it fits the size and shape very well , posted by mani
IMPORTANT: Remember, a series of white specks could be a badly broken up plane, SO DON’T DISMISS THEM. Also, the plane could be under some trees, so I’m also looking for damaged trees or a line in the earth which seems out of place. It is highly unlikely that we are going to find a perfectly formed little plane (as per their example).
Object at these coordinates ?
38′ 46’41.42’N
117′ 25’13.03 W
Elv. 8212 ft
Stephen
Dublin, Ireland
Is there a plan to get imagery for the “50 mile radius” of the Flying M where they say he likely is, particularly down south of Hawthorne? If not, this is a waste of everyone’s time!
I can’t get high resolution pictures on GE anymore, don’t know why… could someone check out this location please:
38 35 16 18 N
118 59 35 21 W
On my blurred image it looks like there could be a plane, and it’s south of the ranch.
how about this ? …blueish like plane tail shape at 1.5 miles from airfield at : 38°35’15.80″N 118°59’9.44″W
Please have a look at
38° 0’55.71″N 119° 1’53.60″W
It´s 41 miles from the point of departure
It´spretty small but it does have the shape of an airplane
Mark,
to me, what is at 38 16′ 16.24″ N, 119 03′ 30.23″ W looks like smoke or a small cloud.
Yet, this ought to be verified by experts.
Campo,
Powell Canyon is the large valley south of Hawthorne.
Its coordinates as indicated by http://www.lat-long.com/ShowDetail-18517-Nevada-Powell_Canyon.html
are 38 19 07N 118 35 17W
(this is actually some point in the middle of valley).
Also, don’t investigate too much along the idea that Steve Fossett was looking for a dry lake bed, as the site http://www.stevefossett.com/ is stating:
“It is now believed that Steve Fossett was unlikely to have ventured far afield (such as crossing the Sierra Nevada range), but that he was more likely to have been on a local pleasure flight – and that he probably was not surveying sites for the upcoming landspeed record project.”
Try:
38.171310,-119.486618
please check out:
38°06’55.52″ N 119°30’11.75″ W
looks like a crashed plane broken into four parts
Been scrutinising the ranges south of Walker Lake.
Come up with about 7-8 contenders,(all reasonably close together) but really is quite difficult to make out specific shapes on this res & geology, so have concentrated on things that look ‘man-made’ or are ‘out of context’ with surrounding veg/soil etc. E.g. Light/dark patches that somehow just look out of place-possible impact sites? Sure could be erosion/light on camera angle etc, but trying to leave no stone…….
E.g.38 23 53 16N 118 44 58 26W as poss impact?
Not sure what these are(SAR?)but H/T (plane shaped)
38 24 52 45N 118 41 37 10W
38 23 27 85N 118 40 44 61W
Any chance of getting that nasty sepia effect off the area around Hawthorne-would make life a lot easier?
Fumes of a burning thing?
38° 4’3.27″N 118°57’53.60″W
Good shape. Not really sure if it was there if you remove the KML from amazon.
38.58411977671392, -119.1871657069838
Stunti,
yes, its there when you remove the KML, theres a little shift between the coordinates of the original and new shots. The corresponding object on the original shots is at 38°35’2.05″N, 119°11’14.49″W. On the original footage it looks even more like a plane, but as it is already there on the old ones it’s not likely to be Steve Fossetts plane. But interesting though!
campo: your outside the new search footage…
only the geoeye overlay network link is up to date! where your looking the footage is min. 6 months old, but realistically more than a year….
look @ my illustration for info on where the search grid ends!!!
Marc B: same thing, outside the grid… dudes, get your act together…
“Please have a look at 38° 0’55.71″N, 119° 1’53.60″W. It´s 41 miles from the point of departure. It´spretty small but it does have the shape of an airplane.” by: Marc B
dude, outside the new footage search grid :-((((((((
“Object at these coordinates ? 38° 46’41.42N, 117° 25’13.03 W Elv. 8212 ft” by Stephen, Dublin, Ireland.
NO NO NO, because your looking where there’s only months old SAT footage… how can a plane that was lost a few days ago show up on a photography months old???
to be exact your 80 miles/130km off to the east off the end of the search grid with the up to date footage. 3 times the width of the search corridor which is like 30 miles wide from west to east or around 45km………………..
“2nd opinion wanted please. Thought I’d have a scour of the ‘sandy area’ sw of Flying M-just on the off chance. Someting not quite ‘natural’ @ 38°25’11.61N, 118°45’17.14W. Wrong shape, but not the same colour (brighter) than background veg-on my screen at least. Probably sunlight/camera angle etc.” by Campo
AGAIN! your outside the search grid! if your unsure where the search grid is use the Geoeye-Ikonos_1m layer button and turn on and off in order to see where it ends!
Hi,
a very clear plane shape :
38° 7’46.87″N 119° 3’31.01″W
34 miles away from the starting point.
Marc
Looks like a plan!
Breitengrad: 38°16’32.63″N
Längengrad: 119°33’11.22″W
As smokeonit already said:
Be sure to know what you are doing and where you are searching! The only way to do it right is to
1. get the KML-file that is linked above. Otherwise you are searching old pictures!
2. Search only the area with the latest shots. Theres a link to a illustration showing where to search (Posted by: smokeonit at September 11, 2007 07:33 PM)
3. Compare any objects found to the old footage. Do this by removing the overlay provided by the KML-file. There may be a shift between the two layers of several 100 pixels so look for characteristic things like riverbeds or roads and make sure the object found is not on the old pictures.
By searching old pictures you are waisting your time. And time is what this is all about!
Looks like a plan! i am not sure!
Bright : 38°16’32.63″N
Lenght: 119°33’11.22″W
Thanks everyone (smokeonit, Luc etc) for putting me straight. I now assume that only the darker rectangular areas on GE are the extent of new imagery. If so then we haven’t got recent imagery of last known sighting area……..
Surely it is not beyond the wit of man or GE et al to put up newer imagery of the ‘revised’ 50 miles search radius from Flying M, including the last know position etc. If they can bang these 2 squares up pronto then how about a few more? It is well into the second week and we all like to help if we can, but if we haven’t got the images and the longer time passes…..
Is there a tool in GE I can use to draw a circle with to get a 50 mile radius from Flying M?
NOTE: I’ve updated the provided network link with a red border around the edge of the search imagery provided by GeoEye. Only the GeoEye imagery was taken since Steve Fossett went missing.
It would be nice if someone were to collect all the coordinates in this comment thread and create a collection of placemarks of those things already found. I would post that collection to help people avoid re-discovering things already found.
Good man Frank-very helpful to IT idiots like me-sadly all my recent ‘places of interest’ are all in the mountain ranges/canyons south of Waker Lake and thus are not relevant in terms of being old data.
I’ll keep working within the red borders from now on!
Cheers
Campo
Wreckage? 38.161697,-119.368515
Folks,
I am trying to view all your posted coordinates on Google Earth but I can’t get enough focus when I zoom in.
Am I supposed to be loading a higher resolution database?
thanks
How about doing a digital comparison of the satellite imagery taken before Fossett became lost and the newer imagery to help identify new artifacts?
@Dave,
For the best experience, you will likely want to turn OFF terrain by unchecking the “Terrain” box under Layers in the lower left corner of Google Earth
Silke
If you load up the outline file, you can no longer toggle on and off the new sat imagery and see the old aerial unless you also toggle off the outline file. I’m not certain the SOS found at 38°32’32.06″N,118°55’54.27″W does appear on the old imagery when you shift over to the corrected location. Anyone else?
Hi,
can someone check this one out..to me it looks like a plane shape. The resolution on my computer is not the best.
40.508269,-118.960419
38.316565,-119.374860 Airplane mark on a swamp surface?
Take a look at 38°38’28.44″N,119°30’16.38″W I can’t get a closer look,maybe nothing but worth a closer view.
Thanks
dave:
you have to wait a while for the footage to load! normally 5-20sec. sometimes longer, sometimes less. if you think everything has a strong blur then you know that it still has to load.
it’s not as fast as the footage that loads in google earth natively. network links that use a different server, in this case amazon, are sadly always much slower than the GE server,
sorry, just tree and shadow (as seen on old image)
Hi Dan
Thanks for your efforts, but from my jaundiced and after 1300 images ‘scrub blind’ eye, that looks more like a car on a dirt track.
And sadly, it also appears to be just west of the new ‘darker sat image areas’ I think. At time of writing, some 26,000 Hit’s left to scan. C’mon peeps, pehaps they might have some nice new interesting ones of the desert, rather than bits of the Sierras which have been doing my head in if we clear them!
All,
I am doing a story for the Chicago Sun-Times on this citizen search effort. Anyone from Chicago/northern Illinois involved in the Google Earth search for Fossett? Thanks.
Frank Main
312-321-2543
“If you load up the outline file, you can no longer toggle on and off the new sat imagery and see the old aerial unless you also toggle off the outline file. I’m not certain the SOS found at 38°32’32.06″N,118°55’54.27″W does appear on the old imagery when you shift over to the corrected location. Anyone else?” by c
the new footage is a few hundred yards off. if you zoom out and compare ridges and creek beds you notice how far it’s off and you will find the location where the sos is located in the old footage… also it’s only 1mile from a nearby farm. if someone can build a huge sos out of bolders or dirt that person could also walk a little to the farm in order to get to safety!
A digital comparison of the old and new imagery is almost impossible. As you can see when hiding/showing the new one, they do not match exactly. The satellites are not always on the same position and then the view changes. Furthermore the color is quite different. Actually comparing the two set of imagery is the real human intelligence task.
Again, I suggest a more systematic discussion of the points of interest. Isn’t there a possibility to share location via google earth community or something? I’m not familiar with this, put it should somehow be possible.
Did someone look at _all_ the locations posted here? If so, he or she could make a kmz-file from that and send it to Frank Taylor. This would help, too I guess.
Sorry, I meant here for the possible wreckage: 38° 9’54.18″N, 119°21’19.55″W
The coordinates I posted before were from the Amazon Mechanical Turk HIT I had been looking at before wandering further afield.
Doh!
look here please, i have found steve fossett 38° 7’46.87″N 119° 3’31.01″W . i have found him!!!!!!!!!!!!! help him please !!!!!!!!!!
“look here please, i have found steve fossett 38° 7’46.87″N 119° 3’31.01″W . i have found him!!!!!!!!!!!!! help him please !!!!!!!!!!” by Andre from Germany
you found a plane that was flying there 6 months to 2 years ago, congratulations, LOL….
“Take a look at 38°38’28.44″N,119°30’16.38″W I can’t get a closer look,maybe nothing but worth a closer view. Thanks” by Dan
your wandering 2.3miles/3.7km outside the search grid! take a look @ the picture with the outlined search grid frank taylor prepared for you guys…
before you post check if your inside the grid boundaries and if the anomaly is preexisting. toggle the new footage overlay and compare landmark since the new footage is anywhere from a few yards to a couple of hundred yards off!!!
the link to the new footage network overlay is in the original article on the top of this page, and frank updated the file with a red outline for where the coverage area ends!
38.288040,-119.338303
Has the right size and shape, even seems a bit white/blueish, and doesn’t seem to exist in the old overlay.
38 11’31.57″ N 118 35’31.20″ W
There is a big white blob and along the right side a possible plane? Not sure if my eyes are playing tricks on me but when I adjust the angle I can see a shadow and a plane shape.
“38 11’31.57″ N 118 35’31.20″ W
There is a big white blob and along the right side a possible plane? Not sure if my eyes are playing tricks on me but when I adjust the angle I can see a shadow and a plane shape.”
THIS IS WHY OUTSIDE THE SEARCH AREA. STICK TO THE AREA SHOWN ON THE TOP OF THIS WEBPAGE.
I’ve looked at about 861 of the HITS so far today and I found this nearby and hope its not upside wings in the lake,
38°17’17.11″N 119°13’54.94″W
Yes…I just looked at the 38, 118 area, I couldn’t see very clearly, but it’s definitely worth checking out!!! I see a plane shape too.
Looking at the aerial map, this location appears to be a couple miles due North of the Lake.
I’ve just completed 1000 hits on the amazon turk, and while I see the point of organizing the process this way I think there are a couple of improvements that could be made.
First of all, I would put some horizontal separation between “yes” and “no” (once I accidentally hit “yes”). Second, if you hit “yes” you should be sent to a second screen to supply comments or even place a marker on the photo. It would also be nice if we had the ability to go back to a previous hit to make corrections after we hit “submit”.
Most importantly, I think the white plane they give us for comparison is pretty misleading. It’s good for a size reference, but I think some aerial photos of other plane wrecks, or the coordinates of the ones they’ve already found, would be a lot more useful. Also, after doing 1000 hits, I just found out his plane was blue.
Finally, unless they deliberately want us to go slow, it would be nice if you didn’t have to scroll between “accept hit” and the “yes or no” radio buttons.
I really hope this experiment works because it seems like it could be a useful technique for many things in addition to search and rescue.
Yes…I just looked at the 38, 118 area, I couldn’t see very clearly, but it’s definitely worth checking out!!! I see a plane shape too.
Looking at the aerial map, this location appears to be a couple miles due North of the Lake.
38 08′ 00.32N 118 59’15.18W
This sure looks like a plane to me…white.
Location is North of Lake Mono in the flatbed
area SE of the rock formation. This would be a spot to land and water nearby. If this is it, the plane appears to be intact. Though you couldn’t
see it from this location, there’s a small town
to the NW a couple of miles away.
White object has a shape of a plane without wings.
38°29’08.06” N
119°18’52.28 W
will someone please tell me what the image is at 38202515 N 119092505 W
Can someone please tell me what Im seeing…
sorry but the only way i can get to it is by flying to 38.311386,-119.198227, and then following that trail up to 38202515 N 119092505 W…
you can see it better without terrain
Please check 38,52′,47.36 – 119,51’01.32W See what you think?
Could somebody (smokeonit?) explain how to toggle between old & new imagery for an IT illiterate please-then I’ll try & stop making unwise and ill advised posts!
However-in the meantime
38 14 39 87N 119 10 07 02W right sort of shape but given little colour differentiation between it and surrounding veg/geology, could just be erosion at base of cliff.
I just read on another website that the
GOOLE EARTH images are NOT current…do we know for certain these images are very recent? I have read there have been over 100 planes lost out there, so, some images we find here may be from the past.
I found another image that could also be an small aircraft…measured it at 48 ft. length, 53 ft. across, white color; approx. 11 miles North of the search zone & 21 miles NW of Minden, Nevada – 39 06′ 32.03N 119 25′ 06.46W
campo
I see you might be looking at the old layer
To toggle between old and new imagiary un check all the boxes in the >places< tab located in the side bar ie the left of ur screen in google earth
…….
also for ppl in general it would be handy if cordinates u post were practiced in google earth b 4 u copy paste them to the blog ……….
im getting lots of [ur search returned no results] what am i doing wrong?
stevefossett.com states: “The aircraft’s last confirmed position on Monday (3 September) at approximately 10:30 A.M. local time showed Steve west of Powell Canyon (south of Walker Lake and southwest of Hawthorne), proceeding east towards the canyon.”
If you enter all these locations into Google Earth, it shows Fossett’s last location as being about 8 miles East of our new photo layer and he was heading East?!? Why does our search area not include his last known position or the direction he was heading?
Please Please check out 38,52’47.36N 119,51’01.32W It looks like a plane flying up the valley with its wings intact but collapsed at the ends bending up in the 3D view. It also looks like the body may be intact. Please reply with your thoughts.
Hey guys help me out…WHO determined the search box area? I just think we have to think about WHO we’re searching for…I’ve been purposely searching outside the BOX. I tend to agree with the earlier comment…if Steve had been searching for a dry flat place to set a land speed record…just not sure we’ll find him in the mountains or forest…but in the flats maybe near the water. He also was smart enough to know that if he had to ditch, it better be near a water source. This man was anything but conventional…someone who knew him needs to get inside his head and figure out what he would do in an emergency situtation.
38°49’39.27″N 118°38’22.30″W
?
Will someone look at 38.301373-119.100238
re; Search for Steve Fossett Continues into 7th Day
http://www.stevefossett.com/
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/09/help_find_steve_fosset_with_google.html
Search for Steve Fossett – My Computerised Search Methodology
Why don’t they get the manufacturers paint colour code of Steve Fossett’s Super
Decathlon light aircraft and then get satellite pics and scan all the pics for
a given colour code range around that colour code and possibly bit map size ?
Get a paint sample of the aircrafts main paint colour, scan it into a computer
and then use that as your colour code search key. If there are more that one
distinct colours on the aircraft, you could do multiple paint scans and then do
a group bitmap colour range search, for multiple colour codes, within a given
search space on each bitmap image.
If the aircraft is in one piece they will be picked up. Even if the aircraft
crashed and broken up, using a group colour scan could help identify the
location by targeting into the group colour hits and saturation of group colour
hits within a specific area on the bitmap image. Do this for all images until
you find a match.
If you scan every bit map for the exact colour code and or for a range of
colours close to that code, you will surely find the aircraft if its in the
pictures. You may need to get some special image scanning software operational.
You just need a search program that can read a raw NOT compressed color bitmap
file and then search for color codes.
Scan the locality where you think he may be first, say within 100 sq miles.
Then expand the scan if required.
Regards,
David
10 Sep 2007
=======================================
David
email: lottomagic@net2000.com.au
http://www.lottomagic.com
Great Lottery lotto Syndicate Software
=======================================
Please Note ! Steve Fossets plane is largely light blue in color, it seems.
http://www.stevefossett.com/
http://www.stevefossett.com/pics/latest_news_page/SuperDecathlon.jpg
==============================
Lotto Magic
Great Lottery Lotto Syndicate Software
email: lottomagic@net2000.com.au
==============================
(sorry for my english)
..and an other things:
we are try to find him in a huge area, but without coordinating! so we dont know how and where tried to find him. I think we are need a named grid. I think everybody registreting to a database, set the are where he try to find Mr Fossett, and if he think he ready check out the are and try to find an other what is unchecked ( of course I think 1 area/man is not enough… more eyes look more)
sorry I know the rescue team try to work hard, this is just an idea from me….
I’m no detective here but I’m getting the impression that we are all searching stuff that in all probability is pretty unlikely to turn up Steve’s plane.
We supposedly now know where he was last allegedly sighted/’radar-ed’ (vicinity of Powell Canyon), and that he was due back in 30-60 mins.
Somebody with experience of flying in these higher altitude areas needs to look at the performance capabilities of the Decathlon and adjust downwards accordingly, we would then have a search radius from where to look.By my basic maths the majority of that area is nowhere near Mono Lake-which is also where most of my recent Turk Hits have been-in that it is about 40 miles from where he was last seen and 50 miles from the ranch. Just about ‘Do-able’ out & back but I guess you have to be in a bit of a hurry!
C’mon Google/Amazon-the SAR team at Flying M think he is likely to be down 30-50 miles from home and we haven’t got any new areas of imagery for a while now. Is it ‘defence sensitive’ or something or haven’t we cleared the existing imagery yet?
Don’t know about this and not much newsflow seems to be coming out of CAP/Flying M lately so purely speculation on my behalf-if he left M at 0845 and was last sighted at 1030 perhaps there might be radar imagery ‘traces’ that shows us where he had already been in the preceeding time? FWIW the balance of probability would suggest that SF is sadly to the east of the new imagery, and that we haven’t done much of the pie, if you imagine the area as a circle and the new imagery as part of it.
See something interesting at 38.644717 -118.522658. Not sure how to submit to the search team, but this blog seemed like a good starting point.
for campo and others having difficulties turning the netowrk layer on and off in order to distinguish between the overlay and the older & native GE google earth footage:
from GE help file:
“To hide places data, select or de-select the check box next to an item.
To turn off the display for a single placemark or overlay in the 3D viewer, click the item to remove the check mark. To turn on a single item, select the check box. For entire folders, you can turn on all items in the folder by selecting the folder’s check box if it is not already selected.
In this case, all items in the folder are turned on. A subsequent click turns off all items in the folder.
Note – If a square appears in the check box for a folder, this indicates that some (but not all) of the items within that folder are currently displayed.”
info from help file (pdf) as screenshot:
http://myskitch.com/smokeonit/google_earth_user_guide-20070913-133609.jpg
my places folder in google earth with geoeye layer turned on: http://myskitch.com/smokeonit/ge_myplaces-20070913-133811.jpg
geoeye layer switched on: http://myskitch.com/smokeonit/google_earth_plus-20070913-133859.jpg
geoeye layer switched off: http://myskitch.com/smokeonit/google_earth_plus-20070913-134002.jpg
the geoeye network layer footage is much darker than the original GE footage. and the red border frank taylor added should make it very easy to notice that one leaves the search grid available from the amazon server.
to the people that ask about why there’s no SAT footage in the area of steves last known location: google isn’t able to get that area from satellites. it’s that easy. those satellites orbit the earth and normally have to be diverted in order to get to the wanted area. to change a satellite flight path is very expensive since a satellite only has so much fuel for changing the satellites flight path. when a satellite runs out of fuel it’s basically doomed to reenter the atmosphere or tumble out of control. so those decisions are not easy ones for the companies running those satellites.
to dirtgirl: i already posted an illustration of that info above, here’s a link to my concusion: http://idisk.mac.com/cordfredericromberg/Public/Pictures/Skitch/GE_illustration-20070912-012905.jpg
it shows where the points of reference are and incorporates the info the search center has given to the public. and it clearly shows that the chance that the accident, or whatever happened, occured in the search footage available to us is not very relevant. but i think to dismiss that footage totally is also not good since steve might have flown west from that location for sometime. we simply don’t know what happened. the only thing that i conclude is that it must have happened quick since the emergency beacon was not activated. if there isn’t enough time to activate that beacon it means that the pilot has had it’s hand full with the situation at hand. or he couldn’t react at all and went straight down due to an heart attack or a seizure or something like that. whatever happened, we will find out hopefully. and hopefully it will help make flying safer for others.
i wish those small planes all had an emergency parachute that lets a small plane like that safely descent no matter what the emergency is… so many lives could be saved if those parachutes would be mandatory…. link to a report about that system: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6749412/
Many thanks smokeonit-
very informative and helpful piece, esp. on why new imagery wasn’t available-I was just getting frustrated in my ivory tower 5000 miles away that all that GE eyeballing wasn’t being directed to the most logical search area.
Point clearly understood now.
I assume that the Pentagon or whoever has sat imagery & technology available for that area has made that resource available to the SF S&R teams. And I thought sat imagery had developed to the extent that it could see a fly’s eyebrows at 100 miles-obviously not!
Is there a way of suggesting how far through the search grids we are eg XX% ‘looked at’?
I thought we were getting closer to the end when I saw ‘just’ 14000 HIts left, went for a cup of tea (strange habits us Brits have!) and blow me it had gone back up to above 40,000, which frankly was a bit disheartening. I guess they uploaded a whole stack more imagery.
It might be useful if Amazon/Google posted up a piece that explains something behind the process of converting and uploading data into Hits, how fast people check images, how much we have done of the map etc etc-something like a progress report-if they think this experiment ‘works’-(at least in principle as we haven’t yet found SF)-how many leads there might have been generated by GEers etc. That way we can ‘see’ some sort of visible contribution that we are trying to make to the SAR effort.
38.291178,-118.593881 try to take a look at this place.
Difficult to make this one out-sometime I find it is helpful to re-orientate the picture, but not in this case. Just looks a bid odd (‘man-made?’)in the context of its background
May well already be listed, but working on the ‘better safe’…. premise: And I don’t think its in the old data.
38 52 59 98N 119 01 05 59W
Just for my interest, if you scroll out to about 4000-6000ft+ there are some pretty deliberate markings on the ground both north & south of my mark (broadly 38 53 11N 119 01 40W &38 52 44 60N 119 00 50W) just wonder if they are markings for military aircraft/satellites?
Whats about that? 38°22’22.95″N 119°24’22.54″W
I found something on the following coordinates
38°22’22.94″N
119°24’22.46″W
Translated with Google from German to English… sorry for my english.
Aids scan ravine for Steve Fossett
Ten days search, six old airplane wrecks – and no trace of Steve Fossett. Now the aids follow to new references, the adventurer can in a ravine in the west Nevadas have disappeared. A helicopter and several search troops are on the way.
Reno – two witnesses had announced themselves at the police and had stated, them in the area around the Pinenut Mountains in Nevada an airplane on the day of Fossetts disappearing would have noticed. The machine was same type as from Fossett and the ravine did not out-fly. A helicopter of the national guard and several search crews at the soil look now there for the US millionaire.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,505594,00.html
Please help me, where is the ravine mentioned?
The best source of the latest search news can be found in the RENO online News:
http://news.rgj.com
The search last evening East of Minden found nothing.
They seem to be running out of leads.
On the SAT pics – I suspect that the week-old GE imagery has been exhausted and he will not be found within this area at this point, so I’m not going to waste my time any longer. It’s sad that the SAR team, Amazon, or Google have not been more pro-active in taking advantage of the situation. Had we all had complete full current area SAT imagery earlier in the search, rather than a small area, he may have been found in the first few days. Instead we were given a small area and not given any imagery in the area he was known to be just 30 minutes to an hour before he was expected back at the Flying M! This location was known on the day he disappeared! Unbelievable and almost criminal given all the GE users worldwide who were willing to help!
For Campo (September 13, 2007 06:33 AM),
here is the performance sheet of the plane: http://www.amerchampionaircraft.com/newac/decath/sdspecs.htm
There are 2 speeds to consider: cruise speed at 8000′- 9000′, and a lower speed for sightseeing (approach speed or somewhat higher).
From the performance sheet, I would bet on
– 130-140 mph (IAS) for cruise (maximum power available at that altitude should still be in 65% – 75% range).
– 70- 80 mph (IAS) for sightseeing
These speed are as indicated on the instruments and have to be increased by about 12% for the decrease in air density.
So true air speed would be
– 145-157 mph (TAS) for cruising
– 78- 90 mph (TAS) for sightseeing
If I read well historical charts, the winds in that region and at that altitude were light : 05-10 kt coming from 190°-140°
From all these and the information posted on http://www.stevefossett.com/, I would bet that from the last known position near Powell Canyon
Steve had continued at sightseeing for no more than 30′ whilst staying within a range of the departure aerodrome permitting a return in less than 30′ at cruise speed.
That makes for a path staying within 40 miles (statute) from Powell Canyon and staying within a 60 miles range from the Flying M Ranch.
Smokeonit,
you wrote “I conclude is that it must have happened quick since the emergency beacon was not activated. if there isn’t enough time to activate that beacon it means that the pilot has had it’s hand full with the situation at hand.”
Actually, most of the ELT that are placed in small airplanes are placed at the back of it and can’t be operated by the pilot. Activating them can only be done automatically by the sensor reacting to an unusually high acceleration (a shock) or it can be tuned manually to the “test” position on the ground.
Planes with more equipment (usually IFR equiped) can have an ELT with a remote control within hand reach of the pilot for switching between modes OFF, ARMED or TEST. I doubt that the decathlon has such an equipment.
If it is the case, activating the ELT was not within Steve options.
Further, in case of trouble, the priority order of actions is
1.- control the plane
2.- assess situation and choose a plan of action
3.- call the local FCC or the last station your VHF is still tuned on, or call on the distress frequency 121.5 MHz (same frequency as used by the ELT).
About Reno Gazette-Journal at http://news.rgj.com,
for the ones who might be tempted to investigate GE around the Sunrise Pass or around the Sonora Pass, both these 2 locations are OUTSIDE the area where new satellite images have been collected after Steve Fossett went missing.
The question of new imagery is a big one. There are two or three civilian companies that provide sat imagery. The company with the closest sat near the search area was GeoEye. The imagery also comes at a price of about $7.00 per sq km so the new stuff that we have was at or about $100,000 plus. That price may also be for images of lower resolution, we have 1 meter or better. If you look at the big picture $100,000 is a big price no matter how much money you have. Plus, even this 1 meter stuff is challenging to filter out the background of brush and shadows. I think that the original intent was to find him sitting next to his unharmed plane in a lounge chair with the background of sand. If you remember in the beginning “He was scouting dry lakebeds for a speed record” and “Has two weeks of food and water” and was wearing a 007 wrist watch/ELT. The truth is that this is the best that could be done at the moment. He may have even went some other direction and really is setting next to his unharmed plane eating jackrabbit yet again and becoming very bored roughing it(I hope).
13/sept/2007
A Nevada National Army Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter was searching near Sunrise Pass, about 20 miles east of Minden, after two people reported seeing a small, blue-and-white airplane disappear into a canyon on Labor Day and never emerge, Lyon County Emergency Manager Jeff Page said.
Aircraft searched the Sonora Pass south of Coleville after a camper reported hearing the sound of a plane followed by an explosion on Labor Day.
Because the reports were at least 30 miles apart, it is unlikely both are accurate, Page said. Fewer resources were being devoted to the Sonora Pass search.
12/sept/2007
The small air force combing the Nevada wilderness for Steve Fossett has spotted a half-dozen uncharted crash sites that may bring some solace to the families of fliers who took off into the desert sky decades ago, never to be heard from again.
William Ogle hopes some of the newly discovered wreckage will be from the plane his father was flying when he vanished on a flight from Oakland, Calif., to Reno. Ogle was just 5 at the time.
source for al the above: news.rgj.com
those 2 tips are the opposite end of the search grid as the last known location of fosset. so all this must be extremely confusing for the search parties involved. i don’t want to be in their shoes… luckily it’s not an interstate SAR undertaking since those tend to be more disastrous… but there’s douglas county, lyon county, mineral county, tuolumne county and mono county. if the search widens even more counties are involved… a lot can be missed when agencies have to communicate…
according to his last location ( The aircraft’s last confirmed position on Monday (3 September) at approximately 10:30 A.M. local time showed Steve west of Powell Canyon (south of Walker Lake and southwest of Hawthorne), proceeding east towards the canyon. This location is less than 30 miles SE from his point of departure ) I have to wonder if this new image includes his whereabouts . from what i can tell walker lake is not and neither is Powell Canyon .If he was heading East then he wouldnt be in the new image .I AM USING GOOGLE EARTH 4
I HAVE A DUEL CORE PC AND AM USING A NVIDIA GFORCE 6600 GT GRAPHICS CARD AND A 19 IN SONY LCD MONITOR WITH THE DISPLAY SETTINGS AT 1280 X 1024
I have other questions about google earth settings like .WHAT IS ANISOTROPIC FILTERING
IT IS OFF NOW
IS IT BETTER TO USE HIGH COLOR 16 BIT OR TRUE COLOR 32 BIT
IS IT BETTER TO USE OPENGL OR DIRECTX FOR THE GRAPHICS MODE
I HAVE THE TERRAIN QUALITY ON THE HIGHEST SETTING
THE DETAIL AREA ON LARGE 1024 X 1024
can anyone tell me if my settings are correct ? Where is the best possible place to search ?
Thanks Email me if you like Johnny jwesley44@yahoo.com
Please check 38°33’44.32″N,119°19’37.18″W
38 43’20.16 N -119 00’12.82 W
Check out:
38.434571,-119.011203
probably a camper….
I noticed something at 38.47345, -119.25899 . It appears to be on a small mountain top, with nose facing down (south). I don’t see the shape in the original.
$100,000 is pocket change for this crowd. I’m shocked Hilton, Branson, or Mrs. Fossett didn’t insist on immediate new GE imagery to cover the WHOLE search area. These people have BILLIONS of $$$. Something else must have been involved, such as relying on the Military to use its imagery, personnel, and automated search programs in the areas inside and outside the GE imagery area. I don’t buy the excuse that the satellite that took the imagery we did get couldn’t have also provided more. Geo-eye should have even provided it for FREE as a way to get exposure to what they can provide. I hope in the final analysis that lack of action in this area isn’t found to be part of the reason he went unfound for so long. I’m also upset there isn’t an internet coordination team that is always online conversing with GE users on this mission.
to tom who wrote “I’m also upset there isn’t an internet coordination team that is always online conversing with GE users on this mission.”
i think your overreacting. from the post in this thread you can clearly see that there a lot of people that are willing to invest their personal time but lack the technical knowledge. there’s a lot of posts that are based on old footage hence are completely irrelevant. for SAR pro’s to have to deal with all those false leads is not a good thing. the question is how this can be filtered… i think in a good web server system can differentiate between good and bad coordinates seeding out the ones that are outside the grid. or even better, a mask where people can enter their findings that tells them what mistake they made.
on the other hand: the satellites that are capable of reacting fast enough and shoot images of a certain point on our planet are all owned by government agencies, spy agencies. there’s no privately owned satellite that can be redirected within hours or so. only the NSA and some european countries and the russians, maybe the chinese have that capability.
since those satellites are top secret those images are under no circumstances available to the public since publicly revealing those images would demonstrate the capabilities of those satellites in terms of resolution and time to react.
Why is my image out of focus when I turn on the overlay? When the overlay is on I am not able to make out anything. Any ideas?
Tom,
I agree that this crowd is very well off but, Steve is a person that has had may brushes with trouble and that may have been counted on that too much in the beginning, and that may explain the lack of more data. The number of imaging satellites pointing to the desert in NV is very small. Other than this effort, it is a waste of money to even point one there because who needs current shots of more sand and rocks. From a business standpoint a trip over NV is lost revenue for a civil satellite. The government on TV has thousands of .5 meter satellites. The real government doesn’t want to waste a satellite, particularly a high res.system , on a US state they own and are able to send a lowly capt. to in person day or night. This exercise is the first and probably only time that the need for current imagery of Northwestern NV has ever come up. Geo-eye also makes its money off selling current or time specific imagery to the US government and environmental organizations thats why the GE content is old and might remain the same. The on-line team would have too be a special software that filters out repeats and non-area targets just like some of the posts above. This whole thing could be designed and refined but it might take more than the two or three days that this did, maybe even months. It would be cool if a permanent site was available for people to just drop-in and search for what ever the latest hunt was for and have some type of organization to the search with feedback.
Can someone take a look at these coordinates?
38° 1’56.43″N
119°28’52.97″W
38° 2’9.20″N
119°28’45.93″W
I found them scrolling though Google Earth and thought they might be something.
Well, reading the latest comments here it seems to me, that most people have somewhat given up hope. But nevertheless: Even if there are possible positions reported, Steve’s plane will not have been the only one. And the contradicting reports seem to underline this. And more than half of the circle with a 40 mile radius are covered by the new imagery. So taking the provided imagery and searching it does not seem senseless to me. There will always be people that think they have the answers. But they will only show up, when the question’s already answered.
But whatever end this takes, there are a few things, that really matter:
All of us give their best. The new satellite imagery is all we have, and searching this is all we can do. I guess the price should really not the problem, right? (By the way: The SAR teams aren’t free, too). And I guess (or better: hope) that if it was possible, they would provide us with new shots.
I can understand people that are a little bit jealous and go like: “Would the search be done for a non-billionaire, too?”. Well: Definitely not. But you have to think in a larger context. to me, this is nothing else than helping an old woman across the street. In fact, it’s much easier, I can remain seated doing this… but maybe, that this approach (using satellite imagery to find someone/something) will be used more often. And I think we now know what has to be improved. And this experience is important, too.
And finally: There were 6 old wrecks found. Those pilots had a family, too, I guess. And knowing, what really happened to your loved ones is better than just having them missed.
So keep your fingers crossed!
Chris
To all of you disappointed about the fact that the search area does not include the place Steve Fossett was last reported :
A NEW SET OF SATELLITE IMAGES HAS BEEN MADE AVAILABLE (see http://www.mturk.com/mturk for loading teh new kml file).
The additional search area is a rectangle (10 miles x 38 miles) covering the heights east of the Powell Canyon.
Contrast of these images is much better.
I have been checking all coord. that everyone was posting.
this one looks like a plane at 38 33 44 32;119 19 37 18 and is in the new area.
I have checked with someone and being that its intact it could be in flight.
but they will review
tdfusa@bellsouth.net
can can someone please confirm
38°49’39.27″N 118°38’22.30″W
thanks
Yes we have him 38°49’39.27″N 118°38’22.30″W we have him !!! we must help him !!! please
Can someone look at these cord.
38° 5’36.70″-118°30’9.42″
Can’t tell if rocks or not.
Sorry if this has been posted.
“””To all of you disappointed about the fact that the search area does not include the place Steve Fossett was last reported :
A NEW SET OF SATELLITE IMAGES HAS BEEN MADE AVAILABLE (see http://www.mturk.com/mturk for loading teh new kml file).
The additional search area is a rectangle (10 miles x 38 miles) covering the heights east of the Powell Canyon.
Contrast of these images is much better.””””””
i cant seem to locate the even newer sat fotage over powell canyon with the above link what am i doing wrong or where else can i locate it?
it would be great if some could post the cordinates of where he tock off, his departure arrival air strip and we could search in the 50 mile radius
ps i found the neweer sat footage i didnt notice it at first its smaller and seperate to the first sat image taken recently
Could this be wreckage at base of tree?
38°11’15.83″, -118°26’38.12″
what about this
38°48’25.67″N
118°56’4.75″W på google earth
please check the region: 38° 6’37.34″N, 118°30’53.71″W
@Brian
For the place where Steve Fossett took off please paste the coordinates of the Flying M Ranch in GE: 38.6185,-119.002. I think I see an Awacs look-a-like at the top of the start of the runway?
Please have a look at coordinates:
3810’11.90″N
11924’21.35″W
(GoogleEarth wih mturk overlay downloaded yesterday evening MESZ)
rgrds
Patrick
http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=9TSZK4G35XEZJZG21T60&kw=Flash
I think this is the correct link
Andre from Germany at September 13, 2007 07:44 PM: “Yes we have him 38°49’39.27″N 118°38’22.30″W we have him !!! we must help him !!! please”
Sorry Andre, you’re again out of the area. Your plane is old.
Try looking in the Tower Peek area so west of Bridgeport Calif. and N NW from there.
38°27’46.25″N 118°30’1.29″W
Not sure of what this could be looks like a white object
I don’t understand what most of you are seeing. I zoom in to about 1500 ft and the plane should be well visible. I was told that if we see a plane to report it even if its in the air so that they would beable to tell which direction he was traveling in. The plane will also show up pretty sharp and white or off white. The plane will be noticeable comparable to streets, houses, and even electrical wire (holder thingys) you may see in fields. It will be quite like the example from Amazon Requester Inc. – Mechanical Turk website.
38°10’37.76″N 118°33’2.41″W
does this look interesting to anyone else? a possible plane or crash site?
Been reviewing your blogs. I don’t have the fancy software some of you have and have been relying on the photos at Mechanical Turk, saving them, then using my photo software to enlarge and adjust brightness/contrast to review.
Seems to me white paint of the plane (is it white underneath or blue?)is what should be looked for, the blue, while not a color of nature, will probably not stand out and may be lost in color dispersion of the relatively blurry images anyway. Even the white stuff is a crapshoot. I doubt anything looking like a plane or identifiable parts will be visible.
I’ve seen a couple of crash sites from the air. If he augured straight in (heartattack or deliberately) there may be EXTREMELY little to observe from the air or from these photos, and little to identify as plane wreckage. That would account for an ELT too badly damaged to broadcast anything. Other than that type of crash, I have a hard time believing he hasn’t been found by now given the time and resources dedicated, and the kind of experienced pilot and person we believe Steve to be. The final answer, if found and recognized, will be “interesting”.
Keep looking, this tech is vastly superior to what we had in the CAP 40 years ago.
Try this
38°34’41.71″N
118°53’36.87″W
How do you know when you are out of the area for resent images?
steen jakobsen: when you look @ the picture that frank posted next to the text on the top of this page you will see a read outline. that outline is the border of the footage that was photographed after fosset got lost.
2 new areas have been added since then. so there’s 2 new red outlined areas now. you might have to re-download the network link frnak taylor prepared for us.
supposed there was no flight accident- it was a planed action to come to area51. his flight experiences could be very useful for testing new secret vehicles- think about…
Sorry, in my last post I mistyped de coordinates
38°33’44.24″N
119°19’37.14″W
must be correct
I ve also found the plane on approximatly 38,… and 118,… , but acording to his unusual activity and vitality, I guess, that we would find him on the Moon… 🙂 ( In case, he is dead, Im sorry for him)
check please: Latitude 38°50’48.37″N / Longitude 118°37’37.59″W
38.3949° N
-119.097°W
Here is another wrecked plane in the search area. Does anybody else agree?
Manel….thanks
this aircraft has been noted.
there is also another at
38 28′ 55.75 N
119 24′ 18.16 W
And here is one I found that no one I have found
has reported
38 22 28 03
119 27 16 97
thanks
continue searching
tdfusa@bellsouth.net
I made a mistake with my last coordinates.
38°23’41.72″N
119° 5’47.98″W
Check this out: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2210.html?theme=light
As a pilot and trained CAP observer I am kind of frustrated with this whole search. Over a week ago I tried to report what I believe to be a plane 9.81 miles west of the airport at 38°35’19.26″N 119°10’37.39″W. I tried creating an account on Mturk (still waiting for an account login so I can sign in). I posted on GE and several other forums but it never got posted. I even tried to email Steve Fossetts web site with no response from anyone. I double checked against all previous wrecks and yes am using the most recent maps on GE, and no the plane is not in the old maps, and I see no shadow (plane in the air). A trained pilot is trained to look for clearings at the first sign of trouble, then try to land there, I found this plane by searching for clearings in his most likely flight path.
Frustrated Bob
As an experienced pilot with some windy mountain flying experience. Steve Fossett along with his aircraft would easily handle high winds with no major issues except ‘fuel consumption’. It is most likely he mis-judged fuel consumption because of the high winds and ran out of fuel enroute back to the airport. Seaching inside 30 miles of the airport along obvious flight paths (looking for clearings)is most likely.
Search all you want, but you will not find him or his plane until he ia released by his alien abductors. The area is a hot spot for ufo’s and yes they do abduct people.
Hi
I would like to help finding mr.Fosset, but when i press the links my computer goes nuts?? It pups up a image with a lot of text, I can see the red sqaure but my computer freezes?
Can’t i just open my own google earth and look in the area? Or is my google earth not updated with the pictures from the days after the “chrash”
Hi
couldn’t anyone set up a webpage where all reported coordinates are listed together with a comment what could be find there. Otherwise it is really frustrating without any feedback. I think all are really willing to help but a little bit more coordination would be useful.
I think there is a plane at:
lat: 38.2801°
long: -119.536°
Blue object appears in the edge of large lake. Please take a look at following coordinates:
38 37 26.41N, 118 40 31.97W
39°18’34.42″N
119°39’29.22″W
A large V shaped distress signal
37°53’44.66″N
118°34’49.23″W
What is this?
Please check the following coordinates:
38°37’48.42″N
118°44’14.44″W
Looks like a plane flying over the lake; but maybe it’s floating on the water…
“A large V shaped distress signal”
No, that is a “V” for the adjacent city “Virgina City.”
38.161868,-118.594666 Fuel Pod located at the coordinates. I shall continue to search this area further.
United States NSA
look at : 39°12’59.25″N – 118°31’03.63″W
In response to the find of A. Schwarz. Good eye, but if you look closely you’ll see the shadow of the aircraft in question about 70 degrees from North.
I found a plane at 38 degrees 29’46.43″ N 118 degrees 55’15.11″ W
I see several others have as well.
G. Brown
I’ve noticed a lot of people looking outside the search area. You have to download the geo 4 overlay.
I dont know if the imagery is very good, to view lake water. But He may have ditched his plane on a lake shore, and sank. Check the lakes in the area. God Bless.
38°30’29.61″N
119° 3’22.77″W
An intact plane? I wouldn’t expect it to be …
38°36’52.76″N
118°43’4.86″W
Crashed into water, near shoreline?
interesting color anomaly at 38 18 18.33 / 119 32 12.60
very similar to a plane
check out this:
38°40’39.70″N 118°40’20.92″O
Has anyone given any consideration in regards to Steve Fossett being shot down by the American Military, and then the incident being covered-up by the military ?
Chek out this 38°17’37.17″N, 119°20’47.24″W
38°19’24.22″N
119° 9’30.93″W
38°14’53.26″N
119° 9’1.64″W
38°20’11.10″N
119° 9’45.16″W
… hard to tell …
38°24’54.22”N, 118°47’0521”W is a good could be. It looks like it made a hard touchdown then went down the slope about 255’ east did a 180 and came to rest. Looks like the wings are crumpled. It also looks twisted near the tail.
38°42’40.19″N
119°11’43.20″W
This looks like a charred spot on a road:
38.373262 -118.539526
Early right after Steve’s disappearance I signed up with the Amazon’s MTurk program. After 2 weeks of participation I stopped; this because of noticing that the assigned coordinates which one would use to work with never seem to establish a positive trend or better still they appeared to be randomly assigned.
Use of Google’s Earth’s resources to aid in locating Mr. Fossett is certainly a fantastic innovation, but because a lack of supplemental data to support this process it has not been a success. Up to now all info offered to establish his possible location(s) seems to be be based on conjecture. To confidently serve as a complement with the GE SAT imagery IMO would be to use cellular technologies as a back up to indicate his remote where-abouts.
This technology has an inherent capability to shadow the phone subscriber involuntarily. Assuming that Steve had a mobile unit; as he flew the aircraft the cellular networks could have plotted his flight path route from his initial takeoff to the flight’s final destination. It’s my understanding that all data gleaned from the cell phones are saved, archived and post accessed when needed for administration purposes. I pray that if Mr. Fossett encountered a forced landing it didn’t cause any serious injuries. I hear that the winter snows are expected in the areas of interest so please let’s hurry in finding him!
Ed
This one is still in the air 38 37 48.40 N
118 44 14.45 W
Has anybody thought that perhaps Fossett in the
spur of the moment decided to fly to the Reno/
Sparks area as a surprise visit to his team
members? Where his organization has established a
base/shop to prep his high speed vehicle for the
up-coming record trials?
The distance from the Flying M Ranch to Reno is
74 miles. Part of the north-west route from the ranch 1/2 way to Reno is well in the box of interest that Frank Taylor has drawn on the KLM file. The closest section leading to Reno is the most treacherous and seems that section has not been updated lately.
On some comments made by others naming the actual
locations he had been seen or heard from…were these 100% sure of his being there or just conjectures?
Regards, Ed
this looks like a plane to me. please check it out
38 25 35 24 N
118 44 10 50 W
38.401217, -118.687097
Something blue…
lat=37.8873409166, lon=-118.670496808
too big but what is this plane doing there? it is not there if you remove the overlay.
Hi all,
My name is Pascal Derks, living in the Netherlands..
After installing Google Earth, playing with it for 15 minutes following my intuïtion…
I think I found an air-plain (maybe from Mr. Fosset), about 162 miles North-East from the take-off point at M-Range Navada.
I already send this info to Maj.Cynthia Ryan
The exact coördinates are:
40 degrees 10’59.13″ N
116 degrees 44’43.20″ W
I hope this is the hit everyone was waiting for, especially for Mr. Fossets family and friends ánd all the people that were looking for him the past weeks…
Like to hear from you..take a look at thes coördinates if you are more experienced looking at satelite images like thes one..
Regards,
Pascal Derks (NL)
look at:
39 10 17.65 n
119 38 26.30 w
39 10 18.97 n
119 37 2.87 w
A plane shaped object, lighter in color that the surroundings: 38.463591, -118.868195
How can I let someone know I spotted what could possibly be a plane? The object I see is not an ordinary object/looks out of place with the surrounding area….
38 23′ 05.59″N, 118 46′ 06.33″W THIS NEEDS TO BE LOOKED AT ASAP! LOOKS TO BE POSSIBLY A PLANE OFF TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF A ROAD WHERE THE ROAD FORMS AN INVERTED ‘Y’, WITH THE TAIL OF THE PLANE TOWARDS THE BOTTOM OF THE COMPUTER SCREEN. WHO DO I GET AHOLD OF?
BRENDA HARKER
IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO
This could be nothing, but looks like the tail end of a plane to me.Please someone check it out.
38°40’3.19″N 118°50’22.27″W
A definite plane shape, white or lighter color compared to the surroundings:
38.893826, -119.434033
This is a Psychic Tip on Steve and I have seen bubbling mud in the near vicinity of where the Plane crashed and i thought such a spot could be located by Satellite and hopefully it will help.
Keep in mind its information I got as a Psychic and I used no equipment just my Psychic Gift to gather this information.
Hopefully it can help?
37°59’48.40″N 119°31’5.55″W
Probably nothing but everytime i look it bothers me more and more. It falls just within the boundary but not sure if its what im looking for. Please comment.
Found a white X (19ft x 19ft) in the middle of 39° 5’9.71″N 119°39’33.69″W It is consistant with an Ground-Air Emergency Code signifying “Unable to Proceed”
I think I spotted a body, no idea if it is Steve’s… Lat. 38°24’29.38″N Lon. 118°30’40.73″W
http://www.crvmanual.com
ok, that aside, I remote viewed not CRASH site but words on sign posts, etc. came up with letters HEL, poss words help, hell, st. helena, later dream state vision gave coordinates air speed 300kts 40 minutes from reno. called FBI, couldn’t even wake the watch office, no faa 24 hr #, so there you are, email me an let’s give this wife of a bitch a real reward…no reward, he soft landed, held captive, more with response, this is the real deal and let’s get him back
Decathalon’s have one nasty drawback (as I see it) in a rough terrain crash landing. If they break up at all, the pilot can be deluged with gasoline from the tank just above him (in the wing or fuselage, I can’t remember) and then any spark and it goes up in flames. Saw a Decathalon that crashed/crash landed in Texas in some sand dunes. It was a freak thing, either pilot inattention, loss of power at low altitude or some freaky wind
influence, Aircraft hit on one wing, then jerked around, tearing one wing partially off, one gear was bent backward, the fuselage and one wing remaining intact. The pilot and passenger were hopefully killed on impact or at least knocked unconscious although the fuselage was completely intact. Possibly broken necks. They were doused in fuel from the ruptured overhead tank and their clothes, hair and outer skin were burned off, but the bodies were intact, still sitting in the cockpit. The majority of the plane was a skeleton and the skin pretty much burned off the airplane. The burn was very quick, probably more like a flash. If that happened, you are not going to see anything like an airplane from the air, maybe small scorched spot. Although in a desolate area, the crash was seen by a plane flying at higher altitude. After the fabric is consumed the aluminum ribs and fuselage are going to look about like scrub brush and they will be darkened by soot. Fosset’s plane also had wooden spars, I think, being Bellanca built so the spar area near the fuselage probably burned quickly.
The wing could have collapsed to some extent under the heat, but the passengers wrist watch had not melted and with the struts holding the wings at at awkward angle you will not have much of the appearance of an airplane. And we are not talking a catastrophic crash. If this scenario occurred we are talking a little black smudge on the ground
to some extent distorted by aircraft framework of several different subdued colors that would look more like vegetation. Wind and dust is going to cover up the smudge pretty quickly. Of course it might not have burned and just broken up. My brother crashed a Lear Jet in New Mexico, wings were torn off and desentigrated in trees,gas didn’t ignite, and the fuselage broke up and bounced over the top of a plateau scattering wreckage over about a mile.
Aircraft was flying over desolate terrain, no one saw it crash, the search started a day later when
other family members started making inquiries. The aircraft was on radar at high altitude but canceled its approach to do a little low altitude sightseeing so Control forgot about it. A few minutes later in crashed. Using the radar as a point of reference a helicopter found the scattered remains in fifteen minutes in a national park. The aircraft was white, and the pieces tended to shine in the sun, that helped out. I hope yall find him, but you need to look for something basic, not necessarily an airplane shape. I wonder how many black smudges are out there? That low vegetation can make a lot of shadow. If she burned, if she wasn’t found in the first day when the smoke was still present, good luck.
Just thought I would throw this out. Could it be possible that Steve accidentally penetrated Area 51’s airspace. I haven’t heard anyone talk about that possibility.
Thanks!
The most recent article I read indicated that Steve’s flight was from Yerington, NV to Bishop, Ca. If engine problems were a factor and he had to land would the area around Mono Lake be a good choice? It is somewhat flat. However, if he overshoot the landing and put down in the water that may explain why no trace has been found. I wonder how fast a plane would sink in high saline water. Have the lakes in the search area been checked?
My respect and sympathy to Steve’s family and friends.
Please check here:
38°25’47.66″N
118°47’6.51″O
Walker Lake, about 2 miles South of the official search circle has been mentioned by several psychics as well as at least one experienced local pilot and was apparently searched with sonar.
So, it is probably hard to imagine that the clear angular light blue spot in the center [ 37°52’26.36″N, 119° 9’52.40″W ] as well as a bit of similar light blue along the near shore [ 37°52’29.27″N, 119° 9’52.66″W ] connected by a vague (disturbed sediment?) trail, starting well before the shore spot and then curving toward the central object, could be Steve Fossett’s plane.
Moreover, since this lies outside the official search area the imagery might of course predate the disappearance date….
Yet I was unable to find any other reports covering these spots and hope someone either knows the date these GE images were taken or has access to some other method of verification.
i think maybe he crashed into lake tahoe ????
a fire at 38°24’56.33″N 118°43’57.83″W ??
40°46’25.80″N
118°40’7.22″W
Something reflective on the side of the hill.
38 19’56.64″N 118 41’51.67W appears to be a burn mark. It does not show up on the basic Google data set, but does on the GeoEye imagery. It appears much darker than nearby shadows and is much longer than shadows cast by the surrounding vegetation. It’s also roughly the size of an impact you might see with an aircraft the size of a Decathlon.
I would like to take my 4-wheeler and several months of supplies and spend a few months on the ground lookin for possible wreckage. I would like to be directed to a place where I can get more info on the possibility of doing this. My email is timbos49@yahoo.com. If anyone can direct me to a web address or a person for more information, would be sincerely appreciated.
Thanks
Tim Smith
While GE claims to be “live”, Google Earth is not a ‘live image’ program. They are photo-stitched images. How is this going to help?
I really hate to spoil anyone’s fantasy, but finding Steve, may be as simple as getting invited to the Barrrons M ranch and bring a shovel.
Fossett’s belongings found! FAA ID cards and personal effects… Near Minaret Lake and Minaret Mine near Mammoth Lakes. Need some hi-res imagery of this area…
37°40’27″N , 119°8’53″W (Minaret Mine)
Is there any way to download non-snow covered imagery of this area after Sept 07. Maybe someone knows of a link. Not sure if last years “master.kmz” and “searchforfossett.kmz have updated imagery of the Mammoth Lakes area. It appears to be outside the boundary zones.
Anyone found any better images of the area? The coordinates from Shuke are at the north end of the only flat areas around there. If you were trying to set a plane down, not much of any other place to do it.
Does anyone have the GPS on the found items? Additional info from topo map? Which trail? They must have fallen from the plane if it broke up in the air, rolled downhill if broke up on impact, or been dragged by an animal to the location found (possibly deposited on snow before reaching the location where they were found) The plane must be within a short distance of this loc.
Just finished watching a documentary about Steve Fossett. What an ego maniac and jackass. Anyone could have done what he did in aviation spending the same amount of money. He was just a rich man who bought his way into the boys club. He purchased all of his certificates vs truly earning them. If he truly was such a great aviator, he wouldn’t have crashed.