Steve Fossett

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Steve Fossett before his flight in February 2006 ( Richard Branson in the background )

James Stephen Fossett (born April 22, 1944 in Jackson , Tennessee , USA , † September 3, 2007 in Mammoth Lakes , California ) was an American billionaire , aviation pioneer , regatta sailor and co-owner of the Scaled Composites company . On September 3, 2007, Fossett took off on a flight that did not arrive at the destination. He was initially considered missing and officially declared dead on February 15, 2008. More than a year later, the plane wreck and remains were discovered. On November 3, 2008, Fossett's death was confirmed by a DNA analysis .

Life

Fossett grew up in Garden Grove (California) and closed in 1966 with a degree in economics at Stanford University with a Bachelor in Economics from. In 1968 he received his MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis , Missouri , and later became a member of the Board of Trustees there. Fossett became a successful stockbroker in Chicago and started his own company, Marathon Securities. He later moved to Beaver Creek , Colorado .

He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society and The Explorers Club .

Fossett was a member of the Boy Scout Movement from his youth . The Boy Scouts of America awarded him the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award for his social commitment after his active boy scouting days. Fossett was a member of the World Scout Committee of the World Organization of the Scout Movement from 2005 to 2006 .

He was married to Peggy Viehland from 1968. The couple had no children.

Adventure and Records

Fossett in GlobalFlyer

Fossett became known through a series of records that he set in particular as a sailor, pilot of motor and glider planes and as a balloonist. Richard Branson helped him with some of his records .

aviation

In 1995, Fossett became the first human to complete a balloon crossing of the Pacific Ocean from February 17 to landing on February 21 . It started in South Korea and after a drive of 8,748 kilometers went down in the Canadian Leader in the province of Saskatchewan .

He was one of the competitors who tried the first non-stop circumnavigation of the world with his team in a balloon . After losing to the Swiss Bertrand Piccard , he attempted a solo trip. From June 19 to July 3, 2002, in about 14 days, the then 58-year-old billionaire made the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world from Perth in a balloon after five failed attempts . This time was undercut in 2016 by Fyodor Konjuchow also from Perth with 11 days.

On October 27, 2004, Fossett set a new world speed record for airships with the ship SN01 "Friedrichshafen" after he was the 14th pilot (out of a total of 17) to acquire a license to pilot a Zeppelin NT in autumn 2004 . He drove a 1000 m test section in both directions at an average speed of 111.8 km / h. The record was later officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) with 115 km / h. The previous record was set on January 19, 2000 by two Britons, Jim Dexter and Mike Kendrick, who flew 93 km / h with a Lightship A-60.

In March 2005, he made the round-the-world flight with the Global Flyer , a special aircraft designed by Burt Rutan . From March 1st to 3rd, 2005 he was the first pilot to circle the globe alone and without stopping, according to official figures in 67 hours, 2 minutes and 38 seconds. Eight FAI records were set with this 36,898.04 km flight. The start and destination airport was Salina in the US state of Kansas .

On February 8, 2006 at 7:22 a.m. local time, Fossett took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on another record flight with the Global Flyer (Model 311 from Scaled Composites , registration 'N277SF') . The goal was to set a new long-distance record: to cover a distance of 41,978 kilometers alone and without interruption, 1,126 kilometers more than Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones had covered with the balloon in 1999. In 76 hours and 45 minutes of flight time, Fossett flew well beyond the previous record and covered 42,469 kilometers in one circumnavigation of the earth and two Atlantic crossings . Fossett landed safely in England on the evening of February 11, 2006, but not at the designated Kent International airfield on the North Sea coast: Due to a technical problem - the generator failed during the approach to Kent - he had to arrive at Bournemouth airfield on the southern English coast a little earlier Landing coast. The 20-year-old route record for non-stop flights with a powered aircraft was also broken.

Deep sea sailing, swimming, deep sea

Steve Fossett also set countless records in offshore sailing within eleven years, especially with the Maxi- Catamaran Playstation (later renamed Cheyenne ). Among other things, he held the record for the fastest Atlantic crossing in west-east direction or at all (4 days, 17: 28'06 hours, from New York's Ambrose lighthouse to Lizard Point in England ) until he was met by Bruno Peyron in July 2006 was undercut, and from 2003 the fastest Atlantic crossing in east-west direction ( Ruta del Descubrimiento from Cádiz to San Salvador : 9 days 13 hours 30 minutes 18 seconds), which was undercut in 2007 by Franck Cammas . From March 2004 to February 2005, Fossett held the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the world (58 days, 9: 32'45 hours), which was subsequently taken from him by the previous record holder Olivier de Kersauson .

In 1985 he swam the English Channel after learning to swim for this company.

His next area of ​​interest was in the deep sea. For this purpose, he had Hawkes Ocean Technologies (HOT) in the San Francisco Bay Area develop and build the deep-sea submersible Deep Flight Challenger , which can reach a depth of 37,000 feet (approx. 11,300 m). It is technically able to reach the deepest known sea depth ( Witjastief 1 ; 11,034 m) and thus to set the ultimate depth diving record. Due to his unexpected death, however, Fossett was no longer able to realize this project.

Abode and death

On 3 September 2007 began at 8:45 am local time Fossett from Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch about 130 km south-east of Reno in the State of Nevada with a light aircraft of type Super Decathlon of AviaBellanca Aircraft . He was heading south, looking for dry river beds. His plane had fuel for a four to five hour flight. About six hours after takeoff, a friend reported Fossett missing. A built-in emergency beacon , which is activated in the event of a hard impact, did not send an emergency signal. The plane was equipped with a radio, but there was no response from Fossett. It was also temporarily assumed that he had also worn a wristwatch with an emergency signal transmitter on his flight.

First of all, an area of ​​around 1500 km² was searched, which was expanded on September 6th to 25,000 km², an area larger than the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . The Civil Air Patrol in Nevada largely stopped the search on September 17, 2007. It was also possible to participate in the search for his aircraft via Amazon Mechanical Turk or a plug-in for Google Earth . Current satellite images were made available for this purpose. 50,000 people took part in the evaluation.

At the end of September, almost a month after the US adventurer's disappearance, around 50 helpers started a new search for Fossett on foot and with horses. Radar and satellite images had previously provided possible clues to Fossett's whereabouts, but the search was stopped on October 2.

On November 26, 2007, Fossett's wife filed a motion to officially declare her husband dead. 15 February 2008 the application was by a judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County , Illinois met.

According to media reports, however, the search should be resumed in mid-July 2008 with an expedition led by the Canadian geologist Simon Donato. At the end of August, another team around the US investor Robert Hyman wanted to go on a search.

U.S. Civil Air Patrol Lieutenant Colonel Cynthia Ryan said in the summer of 2008 that Fossett might have orchestrated his death due to financial or personal problems. In fact, there are numerous inconsistencies surrounding his disappearance. For example, it is unclear whether he flew away at all. There is only one witness for this. In addition, his choice of aircraft was very unusual. The Super Decathlon is a light aircraft that can be easily dismantled. Insurance detective Robert Davis held a similar opinion.

On September 29, 2008, Fossett's weathered items were discovered by a hiker in a mountain area twelve kilometers northwest of Mammoth Lakes , California, including a sweater, several hundred-dollar bills, and driver's and flight licenses bearing his name. This area is east of the summit group The Minarets about 105 km south of the departure point. Shortly afterwards, an aircraft wreck was discovered in aerial photographs 520 meters away from the site ( 37 ° 40 ′ 2 ″  N , 119 ° 7 ′ 59 ″  W ). The American police spokesman John Anderson confirmed on October 2, 2008 that it was Fossett's plane that had crashed into a mountain at a height of about 3,200 meters.

Body parts were also found in the aircraft wreck. A DNA analysis should provide certainty. However, these remains were too small to be identified. On October 29, 2008, other human remains were found near the crash site, as well as sneakers, credit cards, and Fossett's driver's license. The bones found were big enough to have a DNA analysis carried out in the laboratory. As announced on November 3, 2008, the analysis confirmed that the bones were from Steve Fossett.

Some 22 months after the accident informed experts of the National Transportation Safety Board with that Fossett machine in a storm apparently downdrafts had fallen. The mountainous terrain at the crash site was believed to have contributed to the accident.

Motorsport statistics

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate Teammate placement Failure reason
1993 GermanyGermany Porsche Kremer Racing Porsche 962C United KingdomUnited Kingdom Robin Donovan ItalyItaly Almo Coppelli failure Defect in the fuel pump
1996 GermanyGermany Kremer Racing Kremer K8 Spyder South AfricaSouth Africa George Fouché SwedenSweden Stanley Dickens failure accident

Sebring results

year team vehicle Teammate Teammate Teammate placement Failure reason
1993 CanadaCanada David Tennyson Racing Spice USA Spice SE92P United StatesUnited States Hugh Fuller FranceFrance François Migault CanadaCanada David Tennyson Rank 11
1996 United StatesUnited States Wheel Works Racing Courage C41 BelgiumBelgium Jean-Paul Libert United StatesUnited States Rick Sutherland failure accident

See also

literature

  • Steve Fossett: Chasing the Wind: The Autobiography of Steve Fossett. 2006

Web links

Commons : Steve Fossett  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wayne Perry, new member of the World Scout Committee . ( Memento of October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Message from the World Scout Committee
  2. ↑ Fossett sets a new course record . ( Memento from May 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) stern.de, February 12, 2006; queried February 20, 2010
  3. ↑ Steve Fossett: His Greatest Deeds . RP online, July 14, 2008; queried February 20, 2010
  4. ↑ http://orf.at/#/stories/2350861/ Russe flew around the earth with a balloon in record time, orf.at, July 23, 2016, accessed July 23, 2016.
  5. ^ Basler Zeitung (October 28, 2004, p. 40): Fossett flew the fastest zeppelin in the world
  6. ↑ HOT - page no longer available April 24, 2016. ( Memento from February 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Deep Flight Challenger, accessed on February 1, 2009
  7. ^ Search continues for aviation adventurer Steve Fossett , CNN , Sep. 4, 2007
  8. ^ SAR @ Home: Distributed Search for Steve Fossett . In: heise online , September 10, 2007
  9. ↑ Possible trace of missing adventurer Fossett. In: Financial Times , September 30, 2007
  10. ↑ Search for Fossett stopped again . ( Memento of October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: ORF , October 3, 2007
  11. ↑ US aviation adventurer Steve Fossett is to be pronounced dead . In: Focus , November 21, 2007
  12. ^ "Fossett's wife asks court to declare aviator dead". In: reuters.com , November 27, 2007
  13. ^ The court declares Fossett dead. In: Spiegel Online , February 16, 2008
  14. ↑ Steve Fosset is wanted again . In: Spiegel Online , July 14, 2008
  15. ↑ Adventurer Steve Fossett 'may have faked his own death' . In: Telegraph , July 28, 2008
  16. ↑ Is Steve Fossett still alive? In: NZZ , August 17, 2008
  17. ↑ Apparently first trace of Steve Fossett found . In: Spiegel Online , October 1, 2008
  18. ↑ Google Earth Blog: Steve Fossett Items Found Near Mammoth Lakes .
  19. ↑ Body parts found in Fossett's plane wreck . In: Spiegel Online , October 3, 2008
  20. ↑ Found more body parts of Steve Fossett? In: Spiegel Online , October 31, 2008
  21. ↑ Human bones recovered from Fossett's crash site .
  22. ^ Bones confirm Steve Fossett death . BBC , November 3, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Fossett, Steve
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fossett, James Stephen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American aviation pioneer and regatta sailor
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Jackson (Tennessee)
DATE OF DEATH September 3, 2007
Place of death Mammoth Lakes (California) , California