Re: Hunt for Multimillionaire Aviator Steve Fosset Continues


"Chocolic" <chatter448@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FS14k.38330$102.28355@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
snip>
In late August, Robert Hyman, a Washington, D.C., investor and alpinist,
plans to bring in a team of up to 15 climbers, mountain guides and others
with backcountry expertise to check an area just east of where Donato will
search.


Translation: Hyman sees a chance to get his name in the paper, riding the
coattails of a much more famous "adventurer" (or whatever you call rich guys
who risk their lives to burnish their ego in very public ways).


Hyman said he will focus in and around the Wassuk Range, dominated by
11,239-foot-high Mount Grant. When Fossett took off Sept. 3 in a borrowed
plane on what was supposed to be a short pleasure flight, he headed toward
Lucky Boy Pass in the Wassuks.

"He's obviously in an area that you just can't see from overhead, even
with satellite imagery and high-altitude mapping and infrared and
everything else," Hyman said.


That comment deserves some context, and it's a shame the article doesn't
give it.

After Fosset disappeared, there was a massive volunteer effort organized via
the internet to have people pore over satellite images of the area,
reporting anything unusual they could spot. At the time it was thought this
would be a novel way to find the wreckage, and demonstrate the power of new
media, new paradigm, or whatever WIRED is calling it this month.

Trouble was, it turned out to be a lousy idea. Lots of things look like
metal debris, and there were plenty of other plane wrecks out there (most of
them already cataloged). So all the volunteers ended up doing was
generating a lot of false leads to track down.

Which makes Hyman's old school approach more interesting - if his team does
find Fossett (which I think is possible, but unlikely) he will have
demonstrated that millions of eyeballs can't replace a couple of dozen boots
on the ground.


Bo Raxo





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