Steve Fossett

Yeah, I was disappointed also. There was far too much time spent
going over the same details again and again. I was left with the
feeling that they didn't have enough material for an entire hour. I
suppose I wanted more technical details than the general public (which
might not know an aileron from an altimeter).

I was really hoping for the why. I guess we all are. At least a
discussion of what the NTSB has found out about the airframe and if it
was the culprit. It may be too early to rule this in/out but the
producers should have given more details.

The one interesting point was how they highlighted the areas of the
impact (quite flat) and how Steve may have tried to crawl out of the
bush (because he was found 3/4 of a mile away and scavengers wouldn't
have dragged the body that far).

So what are the theories? Weather? Medical? Airframe? A
combination? The one piece of clear evidence is that the plane
impacted straight ahead at a very high speed to do that much damage.
This implies IMHO that Steve had nearly zero time to react.

Possibilities are;

- Weather (i.e. fog, rain) obscured the mountain. Was fog seen
around this area at the time of the accident? Could a microburst or
wave rotor create the same impact pattern?
- Steve was totally incapacitated (i.e. heartattack). But he was in
very good shape for his age.
- Some critical part of the airplane broke (i.e. elevator). Would the
impact have been nose down?
- Terrain (box canyon) - While this is possible I would think that
Steve would have pulled up sharply (and slowed down) as he got to the
end of the canyon. The debris field would have been signicantly
different. IMHO.
- Forced Landing (out of fuel, etc) - Fossett would have tried for a
landing (which was implied in the show). I would think that this
would have been a low speed event. The airplane might have
cartwheeled or gotten wrapped up in a tree, but it would not have been
utterly distroyed.

So my money is on an airframe failure, with fog as a second choice and
medical as a third. Again, we may never know. My $2.02.

Finally, Google was providing high resolution satellite images during
the web based search effort. We now know the coordinates of the crash
site. What, if anything, can be seen on the high-res images? The
normally available low resolution satellite images don't shown nearly
enough detail.

- John