Possible Fossett Items Found Near Mammoth Lakes

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scannerboy02

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MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - Authorities in rugged eastern California say a hiker has found items possibly belonging to missing adventurer Steve Fossett.

Inyo National Forest spokeswoman Nancy Upham said Wednesday the items were found by a hiker in the vicinity of the town of Mammoth Lakes.

Fossett disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton.
 

karldotcom

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LA Times reporting planes are up in the air searching right now, near Reds Meadow...7 miles west of Mammoth

The materials were found by a man hiking off-trail in rugged backcountry near Mammoth. Preston Morrow discovered 10 $100 bills and three tattered pieces of identification, including a Federal Aviation Administration pilot's license and a membership card in a soaring society, according to David Baumwohl, an attorney who said he has known Morrow for some time.
 

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Sorry, I was in some pain yesterday and had to take Perocet for much of the day. It tends to keep you in this weird place between sleeping and being awake, except you can't really do either. For those of you who don't know, I had a bicycle accident on 9/3 and broke my femur just below the top or ball of that bone. The fracture is located in the neck of the femur just below the ball, and would be considered a hip fracture. A month later I'm still in some pain that requires pain medication, the effect of, I don't care for. Takes the pain away, but makes you a zombie.

This is a big story here and I'm told there is a ton of media in town. Lots of satellite trucks parked all over the place. The story hit the media yesterday morning about 10 am. By mid afternoon the media started to arrive.

I wasn't able to pick up all that much as I suspect there has been a lot of traffic on VHF AM aviation frequencies. Those frequencies really need an antenna and my base scanner, with a rooftop antenna is upstairs, and with pain I'm downstairs in bed using a handheld. There must be quite a bit of traffic on "MRA" or 155.160. I would suspect they set up a SAR base down in the San Joaquin drainage or up at Minaret Vista, which is located a couple of miles west of the Mammoth Mountain main lodge area. There is a large heli spot up there that is typically used for S & R operations for the backcountry of the San Joaquin River drainage. I don't think my handheld is capable of picking up simplex MRA traffic from Minaret Vista. I suspect that most of the tactical traffic is on MRA. Air to ground might be on CALCORD, 156.075, as I heard some aircraft calling the command post on it yesterday. I was pretty out of it so I don't remember much content.

The papers and 10 $100 dollar bills were found somewhere east of the old Minaret mine, which is northeast of Minaret Lake. The Minaret Creek drainage is located just northwest of Devils Postpile. I took a three day backpack in that area about 3 years ago. Interestingly I found a place where a mountain lion had brought down a deer that had a radio collar on it. This was in a trail-less area also. The Minaret Mine is the reason the road into the Reds Meadow are was built. The current road follows some of the original route. The original route was built to a very low standard, to handle wagon and horse travel. The trail up Minaret Creek uses this old road until one is about 1-2 miles from Minaret Lake, where the road turns north into a tributary of the creek and ends at the mine. There was never much found at the mine, which is a rather small scale one, and operations there ended a long time ago. There are some old log cabins there, a winch frame over the shaft, a couple of tool sheds, and lots of debris on the ground. Terrain is fairly gentle along the creek, but the head of this tributary drainage is pretty extreme to the north and west. The ridge east of the mine, where the papers were found, is a little more gentle, except at the head of the drainage. Minaret Lake is located at the base of the Ritter Range where the terrain is pretty radical. West of the mine is the Cecil and Iceberg Lake area, which has some very steep terrain. Lots of scree slopes and areas of polished granite which makes finding something painted a light color, which I believe Fossestt's plane was.

Complicating the situation is the possibility of up to a foot of snow predicted for Friday afternoon through Saturday. Snow level could be as low as 8,000 feet. It is supposed to get warm again starting Monday. Whether the snow will completely melt this time of year is iffy. After October 15th, it usually does not at the elevation of the mine and the lake (Minaret) , but in the first week of October would depend on how warm it gets, especially at night. The search effort is going to have to hit is real hard today and for as much of tomorrow before the weather hits. Winter storms in the fall are most often hard to predict, so if it swings north of here, it might miss us.

The other complication is that the papers were found by a local on Monday, and he did not alert the Mammoth P.D. until Wednesday morning, thus the SAR effort lost a full day of good weather. This local grabbed a couple more locals and went back up there on Tuesday. The local was not aware enough to recognize Fossett's name and associate it with the massive search effort that took place just north of here a year ago. I have my own opinions about how the people involved handled the finding of the papers but will keep them to myself. Although I watched an interview with Preston Morrow last night on a local cable TV channel, I don't know all the facts yet and often what is perceived at the beginning of an incident is not what actually happened. I don't know all the reasons for those involved in waiting until Wednesday to report their findings. I'm acquainted with a couple of the people involved and will have to ask some questions after all the media circus ends.

The Mono County Sheriff has set up their new, Homeland Security financed, command post 5th wheel trailer at the Mammoth Airport. I heard a CHP helicopter and fixed wing working the incident yesterday. The fixed wing was "Air 21" and I did not catch the helicopter number. H40 generally works this area and is based at Fresno.

I'm going to crutch my way upstairs and turn on the base radio and switch the audio to a speaker in the living room, where my rented hospital bed is set up. Maybe I can pick up more today than I did yesterday.
 
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Wreckage was found and confirmed to be Fossett's aircraft late yesterday. It was located about 1/4 mile from where the papers were found. It looks like the area is socked in right now and aircraft use has probably been curtailed, at least for a few hours.
 

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I'm struggling through watching Regis and Kelly as the ABC station in Reno was supposed to carry the 0900 news conference from the command post live. I'm waiting for it to come on.

I heard that the plane crash site was on a slope and the engine was uphill some distance from the rest of the plane. The rest of the plane was pulverized and there is no sign of a body. I suspect that it could have been carried some distance by animals, those being mountains lions, bears, and coyotes. At this point I think the crash site has only been seen from the air. It will take those on foot 3-4 hours to reach the site.

I'm familiar with a crash on the Bridgeport Ranger District back in 1983 where much of the body was carried off by animals during winter and scattered. Only those portions of the body that were anchored in to the fairly intact plane remained. With this plane being so thoroughly destroyed, those describing the site indicated that the plane hit the slope head on.

As this crash occurred last year around the Labor Day weekend, I would suspect that a fair number of people were camped at Minaret Lake, a mile or two from the crash site. I'm a little surprised that no one heard anything, or if they did they did not report it. The media is playing up how remote the area is, but by worldwide standards, considering Alaska, Nepal, parts of the Andes, the Amazon Basin, the site is not remote at all. The campgrounds in the front county portion of the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River were probably full or nearly full and the weather was good, if I remember right. I'm surprised that someone at Minaret Vista, which has a very good view of the east side of this ridge (the wreckage was found on the west side) did not observe an aircraft that did not pull out of the drainage. On a holiday weekend Minaret Vista is typically SRO and from that vantage point the ridge is below you.

When I was working on the Mammoth Ranger District I was out on cross country skis near Agnew Campground one Saturday morning. I was on a day trip type patrol of the upper Middle Fork San Joaquin River drainage in the frontcountry only. A single engine fixed wing approached me from the south. Just as it got overhead the engine began to sputter a few times before it stopped running entirely. I quickly skied 50-100 feet to gain a vantage point that had a better view to the north. I started being extremely observant knowing that there would not be any instant replay. At the same time I was thinking about how I would report a downed aircraft. I had on mountaineering skis and a full patrol pack; including climbing skins, avalanche beacon, avalanche probes, and 2000 calories of emergency food, but without a sleeping bag and tent. I wondered about what route I would ski to try to locate a crash, while going over the terrain, and avalanche paths to my north in my mind. After 30-60 seconds passed, while the aircraft starting losing some altitude, I heard the engine being cranked and finally restarted. The pilot gunned the engine a couple of times before cranking up the RPM's. The plane then climbed out of its descent and made it over the head of the drainage and out of site. Anything can happen to you when you spend a good amount of time in the field and you don't know from day to day how your day is going to turn out. I think this is why I gave up the ladder climbing in the agency, took a voluntary downgrade to return to the field supervisor level and stayed there. Seven years in management was enough for me.

Right now, we are getting some periodic rain showers here in town. I seriously doubt that aircraft can be used today unless significant clearing occurs. SAR ground crews are leaving from Devils Postpile. I would imagine they are going to have to grid a large area to look for scattered bones as animals can carry body parts quite a distance. Aircraft would probably not be that useful today unless some clothing is visible. I'm beginning to think that there is a possibility that a more thorough search might be delayed until next summer, should the snow expected not melt in the next couple of weeks.

This is a real tragedy and I feel for the family. If I knew Steve Fossett the above discussion would not be easy to read.

Almost 1000 and the news conference has not come on yet. They may have had to change the location due to the weather. I didn't realize that Kelly Ripa was so attractive!
 
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DPD1

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Thanks for the info... I was thinking the same thing... It's not like he crashed into downtown Reno, but still... You would think the chance of somebody hearing/seeing something were fairly good. Then on the other hand, there are numerous crash sites that have been found in Los Padres that were right within sight of the freeway, and nobody saw a thing.

The local civi CAP had said in Air & Space that they believed he was right near the ranch somewhere. I guess everybody was a little off. Kind of hard to predict though when he obviously had no real plan. It wouldn't have mattered in the end anyway, even if they had known.

Dave
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SCPD

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The ceiling lifted and aircraft began to fly at about 1100. Some of the ground teams started to walk in from the Postpile around 0800. Right now there is more than one helicopter working the incident. Helicopter 551 out of Yosemite NP is working quite intensely.

The tone of the radio traffic is changing, and has been changing since about 1300. I'm hearing flight after flight being used to pull ground teams out of the area. I haven't checked the weather lately, but this could be due to weather closing in, however, we have just high thin clouds right her in town with a little breeze. It seems a little early in the day to be flying teams out for the day. I'm thinking that with this type of an exodus, that something more definitive in regards to Fossett himself has been found. This is speculation based on very little radio traffic and I am very aware of not jumping to conclusions based on some radio traffic, by filling in some wide gaps between a small amount of information. Time will tell.

The news conference was never carried by the ABC affiliate in Reno. I'm imagining that another will be held this evening, or tomorrow morning. With the election and the economic situation, this event, which was huge a year ago when Fossett disappeared, is not being given much time on CNN, Headline News, and MSNBC. A Fox News blog was the first to break the story yesterday morning.
 
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That looks like the new one to me, at least as it has been described to me. The old one was a converted bread delivery truck. I haven't poked around Bridgeport since the new one was obtained and haven't seen it when it has been used down this way.

CNN just broke the story that human remains have been confirmed at the crash site. My wife called and told me she just sent a link to photographs of the crash site. Lots of helicopter traffic over town. More radio traffic talking about crew shuttles. Just heard a helicopter making a call on CALCORD.

I don't know what frequencies I'm listening to as the scanner is upstairs and the audio is plugged in down here. I forgot to lock out the air traffic control frequencies in my aviation bank so listening is a bit of a challenge. One trip up and down the stairs per day is about all I can handle. Just my luck I can't sit next to the scanner and watch the display right now.
 
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SCPD

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Realize too that our concept of new and old is different in rural areas than it is in urban areas. It also changes as you get older. I consider myself a fairly new arrival in Mono County having moved here in October, 1981. I don't consider myself a local yet, that happens somewhere between 30 and 40 years in residency!
 
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DELCOLHFC

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Off topic well wishes for Exsmokey.

Sorry, I was in some pain yesterday and had to take Perocet for much of the day. It tends to keep you in this weird place between sleeping and being awake, except you can't really do either. For those of you who don't know, I had a bicycle accident on 9/3 and broke my femur just below the top or ball of that bone. The fracture is located in the neck of the femur just below the ball, and would be considered a hip fracture. A month later I'm still in some pain that requires pain medication, the effect of, I don't care for. Takes the pain away, but makes you a zombie.


Way off topic but just wanted to pass on well wishes for a good recovery. Back when I was a young buck I was playing some nieghborhood football and my brother put an around-the-waist tackle on me. The physics of the tackle and wet grass lead to my left foot slipping out to the left alllll the waaaaay......crack! Snapped the femur just below the the ball neck at about a 45 degree angle and pie wedge shattered the lower section down to the knee. Ouch. I was in traction in the Hospital for a little over a month and then a body cast from armpits to left toes for 6 weeks. While on crutches following that I fell down the steps and hit my ankle on a cast iron radiator, shattering that, my ankle that is, the radiator was fine........I was either in traction, casts or on crutches from Dec 13 to June 1 with a long rehab after that. I know you don't feel so lucky right now but being able to get around (somewhat) on crutches only a month after your injury is actually pretty darn good! I wish you a speedy and complete recovery! And I hear you about the Percocet, I hate the "feeling" (or lack of) so much I went through two ruptured achilles tendons without it. I was very sore and kinda grumpy but at least I knew what was going on.
Again, get well soon!
 

scannerboy02

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MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - More than a year after the mysterious disappearance of millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, searchers have found the wreckage of his plane in the rugged Sierra Nevada along with enough human remains for DNA testing.

The remains were found amid a field of debris that stretched 400 feet long and 150 feet wide in a steep section of the mountain range, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday at a press conference. Some personal effects also were found at the crash site, but investigators would not describe them in any detail.

"We found human remains, but there's very little. Given the length of time the wreckage has been out there, it's not surprising there's not very much," said NTSB acting Chairman Mark Rosenker. "I'm not going to elaborate on what it is."

The 63-year-old thrill-seeker vanished on a solo flight 13 months ago. The mangled debris of his single-engine Bellanca was spotted from the air late Wednesday near the town of Mammoth Lakes and was identified by its tail number. Investigators said the plane had slammed straight into a mountainside.

"It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly," said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nev., who assisted in the search.

NTSB investigators went into the mountains Thursday to figure out what caused the plane to go down. Most of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found several hundred feet away at an elevation of 9,700 feet, authorities said.

"It will take weeks, perhaps months, to get a better understanding of what happened," Rosenker said before investigators set off.

Search crews and cadaver dogs scoured the steep terrain around the crash site in hopes of finding at least some trace of his body and solving the mystery of his disappearance once and for all.

Rosenker said enough remains were found to provide coroners with DNA.

Fossett vanished on Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. The intrepid balloonist and pilot was scouting locations for an attempt to break the land speed record in a rocket-propelled car.

His disappearance spurred a huge search that covered 20,000 square miles, cost millions of dollars and included the use of infrared technology. Eventually, a judge declared Fossett legally dead in February. For a while, many of his friends held out hope he survived, given his many close scrapes with death over the years.

The breakthrough - in fact, the first trace of any kind - came earlier this week when a hiker stumbled across a pilot's license and other ID cards belonging to Fossett a quarter-mile from where the plane was later spotted in the Inyo National Forest. Investigators said animals might have dragged the IDs from the wreckage while picking over Fossett's remains.

The rugged area, situated about 65 miles from the ranch, had been flown over 19 times by the California Civil Air Patrol during the initial search, Anderson said. But it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane.

Instead, searchers had concentrated on an area north of Mammoth Lakes, given what they knew about sightings of Fossett's plane, his travel plans and the amount of fuel he had.

"With it being an extremely mountainous area, it doesn't surprise me they had not found the aircraft there before," Lyon County Undersheriff Joe Sanford said.

Lt. Col. Ronald Butts, who coordinated search efforts for the Civil Air Patrol, said the rugged, tree-covered terrain gave searchers a less than 10 percent chance of finding the wreckage by air. Gusty conditions also hampered search efforts.

"Everything we could have done was done," Lt. Col. Ronald Butts said.

As for what might have caused the wreck, Mono County, Calif., Undersheriff Ralph Obenberger said there were large storm clouds over the peaks around Mammoth Lakes on the day of the crash.

Fossett made a fortune in the Chicago commodities market and gained worldwide fame for setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon.

He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

"I hope now to be able to bring to closure a very painful chapter in my life," Fossett's widow, Peggy, said in a statement. "I prefer to think about Steve's life rather than his death and celebrate his many extraordinary accomplishments."
 

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Activity this morning is very much reduced from what it was yesterday. I'm not hearing any radio traffic concerning ground crews, which consisted of search and rescue teams from Mono County, Lyon County (NV), Washoe County (NV), and some others I don't recall, that were from other locations in California. The original search was initiated in Lyon County, where the Hilton family ranch is located.

Today's activity is being discussed on CALCORD, CLEMARS, and Mono S.O. frequencies. They are working a helicopters from the Minaret Summit helispot and bringing sling loads in. I would imagine that this would be aircraft debris.

I'm hearing some radio traffic were an OES repeater is being discussed. I've been monitoring 153.755, but can't seem to recall any OES frequencies that are designated for portable repeater use, since the nearest 153.755 repeater does not cover the Mammoth area very well. I'm presently searching 154-156 and am not picking up anything related to OES or this recovery operation.
 

cousinkix1953

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Thanks for the info... I was thinking the same thing... It's not like he crashed into downtown Reno, but still... You would think the chance of somebody hearing/seeing something were fairly good. Then on the other hand, there are numerous crash sites that have been found in Los Padres that were right within sight of the freeway, and nobody saw a thing.

Now that you mention it, a farmer found the remains of a military aircraft, that crashed in 1947 just ouside of the Watsonville city limits a few years ago. There was nothing remote about the banks of the Pajaro River then or now; but it took decades to find the rusted remains of an airplane buried under the row crops.

Didn't they find another old military aircraft in the mountains east of Fresno too? That one crashed during World War 2 according officioal reports...
 

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The command post has shut down and the trailer is being towed back to Bridgeport. Helicopter flights ceased about noon. The south-southwesterly wind is increasing, a sign of an approaching storm. I'm not sure at this point if they did everything they needed or wanted to do at the crash site. If not, they would have to come back next year, which would be anytime from June to August depending on what kind of a winter we get and how soon spring comes to the high country. If they have to come back next year the site would be further modified by the effects of winter, the snowpack, and its runoff.

The NTSB and the site photos indicate the crash resulted in a small fire and I don't understand how that did not get reported. Although it was short lived, if the smoke had cleared the ridge, the ridge is highly visible from Minaret Vista and the road that descends into the San Joaquin drainage.

I'm glad that this mystery appears to have been solved, at least until the wreckage and remains can be further analyzed. I was afraid that this crash was going to join the others that people mentioned above, with no sense of closure for family and friends.

Elsewhere in the Sierra, as a result of climbers periodically checking an area of glacier retreat in the southern portion of the Sierra Nevada, a body from a crash site of the WWII era was found in the last 2-3 years. I also heard a story I can't verify of a WWII B-26 aircraft that crashed in a small canyon 1/2 mile from Highway 1 on the Monterey Ranger District of the Los Padres and wasn't found until sometime in the 1970's. The story included information that the aircraft was covered with thick and tall chaparral vegetation. Probably an urban legend!
 

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Didn't they find another old military aircraft in the mountains east of Fresno too? That one crashed during World War 2 according officioal reports...

If I remember right the aircraft was found relatively soon after the crash, it was the bodies of the airman that were missing until two or three years ago. The site was within the boundaries of Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park at a very high elevation. That is what I mentioned in my post above.
 
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