KIM KOMENICH / SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
John Morgan of the Nevada Civil Air Patrol searches from his plane near Minden, Nev., for millionaire pilot Steve Fossett, who disappeared in early September a year ago.
More photos
Vast Sierra frustrates even the most intensive searches
By Cyndee Fontana and Mark Grossi / The Fresno Bee
09/06/08 22:09:50
Swashbuckling adventurer Steve Fossett vanished last September after taking off in a borrowed plane from a private airstrip in western Nevada.

In a quest to find the multimillionaire and his small plane, authorities and volunteers clocked more than 13,000 hours in the air, scoured some 20,000 square miles -- including a chunk of the Sierra Nevada -- and encouraged armchair detectives to study online satellite imagery.

Yet Fossett's disappearance remains a mystery one year later.

How could this iconic aviator plummet from the sky without a trace? How could one of the largest and most intensive searches in modern history fail to yield results?

The answer, experts say, is that a plane wreck is one of the hardest needles to find in a rugged haystack -- especially the Sierra.

Pilots don't always file flight plans. Emergency radio beacons may not activate in a crash. Airplanes can slide under trees or bushes, slip into lakes, scatter into bits or be buried by snow.

Even experienced "wreckchasers" -- a growing group of hobbyists -- can be thwarted while hunting for an already documented site.

"Sometimes we'll go out and find the site on the first try," said Craig Fuller of Aviation Archaeological Investigation and Research, a Web-based source of military accident reports and other aviation archaeology information. "But on average it takes four to six trips."

Concealed by terrain

The 400-mile-long Sierra is a boneyard of aircraft wrecks.

The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Tyndall, Fla., has mapped nearly 180 crashes within the mountain range -- mainly so searchers can distinguish older wrecks from new ones. Wreckage often is left behind in rugged terrain because it's too tough to haul out.

Many wrecks -- but not all -- have been visited by rescuers or authorities and then forgotten again, once bodies were recovered. No one knows for sure how many other wrecks sit undiscovered.

Fossett's disappearance offers insight into the mystery of missing aircraft.

About 9 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2007, Fossett left a remote ranch near Yerington, Nev., owned by hotel magnate William Barron Hilton in a single-engine Citabria Super Decathlon.

He didn't file a flight plan. Published news reports later said Fossett was headed toward Bishop in the eastern Sierra, an area known for huge gusts of wind in the fall.

Fossett, 63, built a fortune by trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He frequently risked his life in pursuit of aviation records and adventure.

In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world on a solo balloon flight. He also swam the English Channel, finished the Iditarod sled-dog race and climbed several world-famous mountain peaks.

Last year, agencies and volunteers from around the country invested thousands of hours in the search. Experts reviewed radar data. Crews in the air used cutting-edge technology to search the ground. The public helped in the hunt by examining satellite photos over the Internet.

After a month, the rescue coordination center suspended the main search by the Civil Air Patrol -- which coordinated with other agencies. The air patrol is a nonprofit and all-volunteer auxiliary of the Air Force.

The failure to find Fossett "is a testament to the unforgiving terrain comprising the search area," Lt. Col. E.J. Smith, the patrol's search leader, said last October. "The combination of high altitude, thick forest and mountainous terrain proved to be unconquerable during this particular search operation."

A judge declared Fossett dead in February. Private searches are again under way.

G. Pat Macha, an aviation archaeologist who has investigated historic airplane wrecks, said the search window is narrowing if Fossett crashed at high elevation. Days are becoming shorter, and winter increases the possibility that snow could bury the plane.

Said Macha: "If they don't find him by Oct. 1 this year, it's going to be a long, long time."

A dad vanishes

William Ogle, 48, knows what it's like to wait.

Ogle, an assistant professor in the biomedical engineering department at the University of Florida, has endured the mystery of his father's disappearance since 1964.

Charles Ogle, a businessman/developer and father of two, vanished on a flight between the Bay Area and Reno, Nev., when his son was nearly 5 years old.

William Ogle remembers sitting on his dad's lap during car trips and holding the controls of his dad's plane. Once, the family of four flew to Monterey just to eat dinner.

But Ogle's parents had split up by 1964. His father had a girlfriend, and after he disappeared some speculated he had simply run off.

Ogle later found comfort in documents from court proceedings that declared his father legally dead years after he vanished. The judge believed Charles Ogle was devoted to his son and daughter and wouldn't have abandoned them.

When crews looking for Fossett last year spotted a few unknown wrecks, William Ogle felt pangs of hope. But most were later identified as old, known crash sites that hadn't made it onto the coordination center's list.

Descriptions of two other wrecks don't seem to match his father's single-engine Cessna, Ogle said.

From the Fossett search, he knows how tough it is to find a missing plane. Of his father's crash, Ogle said: "This isn't an easy mystery to solve."

In Utah, Susan Wheeler and her family also wait for answers. Her grandparents, Carroll Eldridge and Ruby Dora Webb, along with her uncle, William E. Webb, disappeared during a 1967 flight from San Jose to Ogden, Utah.

Like Ogle, Wheeler wondered whether one of the unknown wrecks found in the Fossett search was her grandparents' missing Piper PA-28. She said authorities seem to have ruled out the possibility, but she isn't completely convinced.

Wheeler hopes the Fossett search will yield answers. Via e-mail, she said: "My fingers are crossed that maybe after 41 years, our luck might change."

Why they seek wrecks

Those involved in aviation archaeology and wreckchasing -- or wreckfinding -- often are lured by the mystery and thrill of the search.

The hobby also often requires hiking, climbing and detective work.

Longtime wreckchasers say they want to explore, document and preserve historic crash sites as memorials to people who suffered or died there.

Macha, co-author of "Aircraft Wrecks in the Mountains and Deserts of California," has tromped across all kinds of terrain for more than 40 years.

Macha was a high school sophomore in 1963 when he stumbled upon the wreck of a Douglas C-47B in the San Bernardino Mountains. A hand-painted, yellow "X" marked on the plane signified that it wasn't a new discovery or a new wreck.

The military transport hadn't burned. It was surrounded by parachutes and other personal effects from the 13 men who died there in 1952; their bodies had been removed.

Macha, who lives in Southern California, has since hiked to hundreds of historic crash sites -- dodging bears, snakes and more. The retired history and geography teacher has helped identify wrecks and connect relatives of fallen aviators with pieces of their past.

Fresno's Patrick Starkey has made 50 searches since 1981.

Starkey, who worked on planes and helicopters during his stint in the U.S. Army, said he has recovered parts from World War II planes -- which he often gives away to museums. He loves researching wrecks, mapping out possible locations and solving mysteries.

"These searches are skill and luck," said Starkey, whose regular job is with the Fresno County Public Works Department. "Sometimes, you just have to keep looking. It took me nine searches to find one wreck."

Fuller, who has collected thousands of military accident reports, is devoted to the field. He has a bachelor's degree in aeronautical science and teaches occasional classes on how to find, research and document historic crash sites.

"The more remote the site, usually the more that's left there," Fuller said. "It's exciting to see big pieces, but I'm just as excited at a site where everything will fit into a 5-gallon paint can."

On the Web, Fuller has joined the discussion over Fossett's disappearance -- partly to debunk the idea that hundreds of planes sit undiscovered in the search area.

Someone may locate Fossett's crash, he said. But if the plane burned, it may look like nothing more than a pile of twigs or a bush from the air.

"It's going to be a hiker or a hunter who's going off the beaten path that finds it, most likely," Fuller said.

The reporters can be reached at cfontana@fresnobee.com, mgrossi@fresnobee.comor (559) 441-6330.
William Ogle is seen with father Charles Ogle in 1964, the year the plane Charles was piloting disappeared over the Sierra. The plane never has been found and William, who was nearly 5 when his father vanished, always has wondered what happened to him. William remembers sitting on his dad's lap during car trips and holding the controls of his dad's plane.
SPECIAL TO THE BEE
William Ogle is seen with father Charles Ogle in 1964, the year the plane Charles was piloting disappeared over the Sierra. The plane never has been found and William, who was nearly 5 when his father vanished, always has wondered what happened to him. William remembers sitting on his dad's lap during car trips and holding the controls of his dad's plane.

The plane where Donnie Priest was found in 1982 is buried under the snow on the side of a slope near Yosemite National Park. The plane is barely visible, marked by a bit of yellow sticking out of the drifts in the center of the photograph. Priest survived in that plane for five days before being rescued.
PHOTO COURTESY JIM SANO
The plane where Donnie Priest was found in 1982 is buried under the snow on the side of a slope near Yosemite National Park. The plane is barely visible, marked by a bit of yellow sticking out of the drifts in the center of the photograph. Priest survived in that plane for five days before being rescued.

From left, team leader Simon Donato, Greg Francek, Tyler LeBlanc and Keith Szlater consult a map in July at a base camp in Bridgeport, in the search area for multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett.
ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE
From left, team leader Simon Donato, Greg Francek, Tyler LeBlanc and Keith Szlater consult a map in July at a base camp in Bridgeport, in the search area for multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett.