CAP Aircraft Searching for Steve Fossett

[Flying Pig]

I know one crash that moved downslope 2000 feet after a storm and this Spring the remains of an airmen was located after the Spring thaw after a WWII crash.  The Sierras hold many secrets!

One WW2 crew member was located last spring, and the second was located this spring. Most likely from the same crash.   Makes you wonder what else is laying out there.  The Sierras are usualt packed with snow.  But this year, its bare rock up there.

[SARPilotNY]

What is the status of the mission?  I guess we will have to wait until who knows when to find out what happened to Steve.

[bosshawk]

The mission is officially on hold, awaiting any new items of intelligence about what he was doing and where.  It is quite typical to cover the search area to the satisfaction of AFRCC and then suspend it.  Both CAWG and NVWG have had crews on standby since the mission was suspended, but I know of only one actually launched and that was to check out some new reporting.  Flying with six to 18 aircraft per day for over two weeks was a huge effort: two bases and nobody knows how many people.  I seem to recall that CAP flew in excess of 1200 hours.  That is quite an effort.

When will we find out what happened: when the crash is located and that may be years.

[badger bob]

Is the Mission being reactivated with the tracking information?

[SARPilotNY]

I saw on CBS news that the mission will "reopen" this weekend with searchers focusing on Death Valley in California.  New Radar and satellite intel is leading searchers there.  I wonder if CAWG will be needing help?

[bosshawk]

As of 1600L, California time, nothing has come out in official CAWG traffic about the mission resuming.  I, too, heard about the new radar information on Fox.

[A.Member]

FWIW:
Air Force spots Fossett's possible path

[california IC]

THIS IS WHAT THE NEWS IS TALKING ABOUT FOR THIS WEEKEND.

CARSON CITY, Nev. —  Relying on new leads from Air Force experts, crews looking for famed aviator Steve Fossett plan to comb a rugged area near Death Valley by air and foot, authorities said.
Gary Derks, the state Department of Public Safety official in charge of the search, said Tuesday that the Air Force analyzed images picked up by radar and satellite and "picked up what could be Mr. Fossett, his track."
"It gives us an idea, if it's him, what direction he was going," Derks said of the wealthy adventurer, missing for more than three weeks. Derks said the area stretches about 100 miles to the southeast from where Fossett took off Sept. 3, an airstrip on a million-acre ranch owned by hotel mogul Barron Hilton. Maps show the area would include Nevada's remote Silver Peak Range, close to Death Valley National Park in California.
"There's nothing definite, nothing concrete," Derks said. "These are just some hits that we want to track." Search planes will fly over the area Saturday and Sunday, Derks said.
The area is "very rough terrain," Derks said. "If he's there, he's going to be hard to see. That's why we're sending in the ground search-and-rescue crews, too."

[Mustang]

The area is indeed rugged; I searched the grid adjacent to the two that contain the Silver Peak mountains on my final day of searching out of Minden.  That grid had valley floors at 4,700' and mountain peaks over 14,000'!  I really earned my paycheck that day!

[sardak]

This weekend's search started today with about 50 ground searchers and 3 CAP aircraft according to CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/29/fossett.ap/index.html

Mike

[calguy]

The news says they didn't find anything over the weekend and that the mission will continue based on leads.  I guess they left California out of searching Death Valley and let Nevada Wing do it as well as a few other grids north of Bishop.  This is what Col. Muniz fought to prevent.  The previous wing CC signed an MOU giving Nevada exclusive rights to search in California anywhere east of the Sierras, Death Valley, south near Barstow at which time AZWG picks up the rest.  The reason?  CAWG was unable to get aircrews to fly missions in the Barstow/Baker area.  There is another MOU with ORWG too.  We only have ourselves to blame and an old wing CC and VCC that was non operational and saw SAR as a liability.  Now our local folks are upset because we didn't use member owned aircraft on the mission.  First, we didn't use all of CAWG aircraft since there were no pilots to fly them and where were these guys years ago when before we sold the store to Nevada?  Fair weathered pilots?  The State OES put CAWG on double secret probation a few years ago because it was taking 2 to 3 hours to find and IC and get a mission going.  Our MOU called for 30 minutes.  The CC & VCC wanted to change it to 3 hours, the State told them to meet the 30 minute limit or they would put CAWG CAP out of the missing airplane business.  Well that didn't work well.  I still see multiple pages for an IC and aircrews.  I think one of the big rubs with Col. Muniz was that he was going to move the aircraft from non performing units.  There are several that have not flown one A-1 mission prior to the Fossett search in over a year!  I guess the squeaky wheel got its grease, lazy aircrews 1, wing CC 0.

[RiverAux]

NHQ has sent out a news release saying that the AFRCC has suspended the Fossett search again.  It isn't up on the web site yet, but I assume it will be tomorrow. 

In it is this phrase:

Over the last decade, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and CAP have been involved in thousands of searches for missing aircraft and only 18 of those missions are unsolved.

This is just a blatant misrepresentation of facts.  I've got AFRCC reports for most of the last decade and "thousands" is a major stretch.

Missing Airplane missions:
1999: 86
2001: 129
2002: 113
2003: 118
2004: 107
2005: 107

So unless 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2006 had WAY more than the average number of aircraft missions, this is just plain wrong.

Now, to be charitable, they could be counting ELT mission as missing aircraft searches.  Obviously they aren't really, but if we give them that, then the 18 "unsolved" case number is also WAY wrong.  As we all know, a large number of ELT searches get suspended without having found the target. 

[california IC]

I can think of at least two in California in the last ten years, one (Katz) in San Bernardino County (Lytle Creek PA28)  and one that possibly flew out to sea in Mendocino.  I think they never found the attorney from Deer Valley in AZ. this year too.  18???

[sardak]

Have to agree. The only way AFRCC and CAP have participated in thousands of searches in the last decade is to count ELT searches.   Unless they round anything over 1,000 up to the next whole thousand, in which case 2,000 is "thousands."

At least they got this stat correct for a change:
CAP members perform 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the AFRCC.

Usually the phrase "as tasked by the AFRCC" gets deleted, making CAP look like it does most of the SAR in the US.

Mike

[calguy]

Also add the mission from CA to the East Coast earlier this year.  The a/c made it as far as New Mexico and was never found.  That's 4.

[K_Poskey]

For those of you who check CAPTALK more than CAP.gov:

NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS -- The search for record-setting aviator Steve Fossett ended Oct. 2 after a 20,000-square-mile search that included members of the Nevada, California, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas wings in what amounted to one of the largest, most intensive searches for a missing aircraft ever.

Over the last decade, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and CAP have been involved in thousands of searches for missing aircraft, and only 18 of those missions are unsolved. CAP members perform 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as assigned by the AFRCC, which credited them with saving 58 lives in 2006.

"The Civil Air Patrol joins the rest of the aviation world and admirers worldwide in its disappointment in not locating Steve Fossett," said CAP's acting national commander, Brig. Gen. Amy S. Courter. "This remarkable man showed us what grit and determination are all about. In his life, he chased and shattered world records, floating and flying farther and faster than anyone before. His adventures are many and his accomplishments profound. We regret that those adventures may have come to an end."

The search for Fossett began Sept. 4, a day after he failed to return to the Flying M Ranch's private airstrip near Yerington, Nev. Initially, more than 60 Nevada Wing members and six aircraft were involved in the search effort.

This expanded to include hundreds of members and more than 25 aircraft during the following days. Sophisticated "grid" searches of thousands of square miles of rugged, high-desert terrain were conducted by CAP members, who devoted more than 17,000 man-hours both on the ground and in the air. CAP flew 629 flights totaling 1,774 flying hours.

Nearly a dozen radar analysis experts reviewed the Fossett radar data, including experts from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Air Force, Navy, National Transportation Safety Board and CAP, using multiple approaches and software tools, all looking for one thing – Fossett's radar track, said U.S. Air Force radar analysis expert Lt. Guy Loughridge of the Colorado Wing.

"Tracks often come in broken pieces because the radar sites see an aircraft for a short period, and then the track vanishes below radar coverage or behind a mountain,"  Loughridge said. "If Fossett's plane flew below mountains at low altitudes, no amount of analytical effort or technology will detect his radar track. We cannot analyze what is not visible."

The search included use of CAP's cutting-edge ARCHER (Airborne Real-Time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance) technology. ARCHER aircraft gave aircrews the ability to find unique objects on the ground using specially equipped on-board computers and hyperspectral sensor technology.

CAP's efforts integrated fully with the Nevada Army and Air Guard, the Nevada Office of Emergency Management and Department of Public Safety. In addition, CAP  worked closely with local law enforcement agencies and massive private resources from both the Flying M Ranch and the Fossett family.

The weekend of Sept. 29-30, CAP aircraft again flew over terrain judged by radar analysis to most likely have been Fossett's flight path. From the start of the operation these areas were searched repeatedly at different times of day and light angles so crews could better see into deep mountain ravines. Ground search teams on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles simultaneously combed the same target areas.

Despite the well-coordinated effort, Fossett and his aircraft remain undetected. "This is a testament to the unforgiving terrain comprising the search area," said search leader Lt. Col. E.J. Smith of Nevada Wing Headquarters. "The combination of high altitude, thick forest and mountainous terrain proved to be unconquerable during this particular search operation."

"Although the search effort by the Civil Air Patrol has been officially suspended by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, should new information become available, CAP could be asked to assist once again with its considerable air assets,"  Courter said.

[SDF_Specialist]

It's a shame that no one was able to locate the wreckage, and give his family closure. Steve Fossett was an admirable guy both in and out of the air. May his soul rest in peace, and his legend live on!

[pixelwonk]

    
"Air Force suspends U.S. CAP's search for famed aviator" topic merged

[RiverAux]

This NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/us/04fossett.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin says that AFRCC has thrown out all files on unfound missing airplanes prior to 1989.  Unfortunately, they sort of imply in part of the article that it has something to do with CAP and wasn't just an AF decision. 

By the way, they say that there were only 3 "new" old wrecks found during the search. 

Luckily they didn't mention that CAP's regulations require that all such files held at local or Wing level be destroyed after 4 years (CAPR 10-2).

[SarDragon]

Destruction is neither required, nor recommended, if the records have historical significance. I think the records in question have sufficient significance for retention.