Steve Fossett Missing: Help find him by searching satellite imagery

On Monday, September 3, 2007, Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling and the first person to fly around the world in a balloon went missing in Nevada. An airplane he was flying failed to return. No one has any idea where he is.

Through the generous efforts of individuals at several organizations, detailed satellite imagery has been made available for his last known whereabouts.

Instructions
Go to Amazon Mechanical Turk at:
http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=9TSZK4G35XEZJZG21T60&kw=Flash

You will be shown a single satellite image. The task is to flag any satellite images which contain foreign objects that may resemble Steve's airplane or parts of a plane. Steve's plane will show up as a regular object with sharp edges, white or nearly white, about 21 pixels long and 30 pixels in wingspan.


Example of the size of object to look for. The white plane shown above (30 pixel wingspan by 21 pixels by length) is approximately the size of Steve's plane.



Notes
If in doubt, be conservative and mark the image. For complete coverage, we've set up this HIT such that multiple people will cover the same area several times over. Please do your best, but do not worry that missing one little detail will be tragic. It will get caught.

Marked images will be sent to a team of specialists who will determine if they contain information on the whereabouts of Steve Fossett.

Friends and family of Steve Fossett would like to thank you for helping them with this cause.

This may be a stupid question, but how up to date are the images?

These are supposedly the latest images of the search area taken Monday IIRC.

If he's down in one of the frames don't expect the aircraft to look like the aircraft in the example. Crash sites look different -- the wings may not be attached, it may be belly-up. I'm assuming these are infra-red images. The aircraft has fabric and metal, not sure how that looks on IR. It would be nice to see a Citabria Super D in the example image.

Most of my searches were at 9000-11000 ft in anything but flat terrain. Nobody would scout for a place to break a land speed record in this terrain.

What I learned from this effort is that these guys think Fossett went down in the mountains. He was probably just out on a fun sightseeing flight in the mountains. Fairly rugged terrain. Found a couple spots that look interesting for camping and hiking.

What would be nice is if they'd show us satellite images of the crash sites they've located recently so we can see what one looks like. Those would be much better examples of what to look for than the image of an aircraft sitting at an airport.

If Fossett had gone down on one of the dry lake beds or flat lands, they would have found him right away.

No, I'll bet he's down in a canyon somewhere. And maybe not even within current search parameters. He may have had a sudden thought: "Hey, Mack said he thought he say some long narrow lakes beds down by Mono Lake" or something.

I hope someone finds him soon. He's fast running out of time.

Sue

I'm am frustrated. I figured out how to cut and paste the search coordinates to Google earth and have a look.

I found something of interest outside the tiny square offered but the page offering the coordinates has checkboxes that can't be checked and a comment box that can't be filled in so I can't report the object.
And there's no address for help.

Yes, I DO know what to look for. My website is coloradowreckchasing.com.

I hate lame software.

Anybody got an idea on what to do?

Are those images darker than all get out for anyone else? Maybe if they could take the images during the day, or shove a big flash adapter on the satellite?

Ah heck- I think I figured it out. The first time I Accepted a HIT it made me login and then said I'd done it wrong.
Next time I accepted it enabled the buttons and the comment screen.

This is a low-percentage way to search but innovative.
I don't expect to see wings/tail shapes. But.... it costs nothing to look.

Once a crash has modified the aircraft to something other than a nice geometrical object, searching at low resolution is a low probability technique. That's why they call it artificial artificial-intelligence.

If the military were to commit their satellite analysis resources to this I'm sure they could cover the entire search area fairly quickly. But has DoD committed those resources? I doubt it, they're busy looking for other higher priority targets elsewhere.

I think the point is that so far CAP has failed to find SF. Now folks are trying to think out of the box and attempting what many (including me) would consider low probability search techniques. But it's only a low probability at the individual level. Put 1000 sets of eyes looking at the search area and the probability increases. The issue I have with this is I/we have a limited idea of what that wreck looks like in that imagery. I doubt it resembles an aircraft sitting at an airport. That, and we really don't know if the aircraft is in the new imagery that mechanical turk has available. It may have crashed outside that geographic area.

Chris,
Any thoughts on the Mechanical Turk/Google Earth effort?

The same link for the imagery search is on the official Steve Fossett website.

http://www.stevefossett.com/index.html

But I do agree that it is rather a pointless exercise,

an example would be at 38.597042,-119.467755

Looks like a debris field approx 100 yards, White specks formed in a chevron on speckled blackened earth,

very difficult to tell without higher resolution.

I came across the Mechanical Turk/Google Earth effort this morning, and called my young children to come and take a look. We talked about some basic SAR issues, and then sifted through 100 quadrants together, talking about what we were seeing. Two of them had some slightly unusual reflectance features, and so we duly tagged them so someone more expert could take a glance. It would be fascinating to have a sense as to how many people did something similar, and to know how many quadrants were examined collectively.

Christopher,

Hey new guy, welcome to the fire! You'll find we are a (mostly) friendly group.

I like how you involved your kids with the search. It'll help them realize just how hard it is to spot someone/something. From there a number of lessons could grow...

-Blast

Boater,

Thank you for the link. It's nice to see someone provide a tool through which some form of assistance (however slim the chance of success may be) can be provided to the search effort. This certainly is more in the spirit of the forum, and this site, than some of the utterly useless, unwarranted criticism that was proffered on this thread following your posting.

What exactly does this mean - in order to sign in and search, you must sign an agreement. The sign-in agreement for the Mechanical Turk says it can debit my bank account??

BY REGISTERING FOR AND USING THE SITE, YOU CERTIFY THAT (1) YOU ARE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD;
(2) YOU HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO ENTER INTO THIS AGREEMENT AND BIND YOURSELF OR THE COMPANY
YOU REPRESENT; **(3) YOU AUTHORIZE THE ELECTRONIC TRANSFER OF FUNDS, AND IF YOU REQUEST
SERVICES, FOR AMAZON MECHANICAL TURK TO DEBIT YOUR BANK ACCOUNT IN ACCORDANCE
WITH SECTION 4 OF THIS PARTICIPATION AGREEMENT;** AND (4) YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND
BY ALL TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS
OF THE PAYMENT SERVICE DESCRIBED IN SECTION 4 AND ALL APPLICABLE POLICIES,
PROCEDURES AND GUIDELINES.

Participants in this thread will notice some deletions and editing of comments that breached the forum rules ( easilly located without satellite technology.) My opinion on this online effort? For what it is worth, I worry about online transactions ever since battling PAYPAL As to the value? Photo interpretation is a learned skill. In my vocation as archaeologist I can see subtle clues laymen miss ion photographs and onsite. Meanwhile I may very well be stomping on some endangered butterfly crysalis It has a social feedback of involving people and may very well raise interest in our avocation at ETS. Just remember the Mars Image of a carved face that had the Woo Woo crowd excited. I am suprised that same 'woo woo' crowd hasn't started any conspiracy theories of Area 51 and a newly discovered triangle ( hint, it's called NEVADA.)Whatever the outcome, this unfortunate loss is a reminder. For all of our advances since Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote Wind,Sand and Stars, Mother Nature is still neutral as Mors Kochanski reminds us.

I apologize.

Sorry Chris, didn't realize I'd crossed the line. Thanks for fixing it.

Just sitting on the outside, I would say that the chance of the airraft being intact is small, The aircraft is a tube frame covered in fabric, this tend to fold up in an accident. I also
find it troubling that the ELT has not been heard, either by satulite of the search aircraft. The search from satilite photos has a very low chance of sucess, but is better than nothing.

Has anyone considered having "before" and "after"
images available.

Some great discussion by people who really know how to use Google Earth is here:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/992512/page/0/fpart/1/vc/1

Some have even found whole airplanes, probably in flight!

I worked 30 different coordinates then panned and zoomed and scrolled around the points looking for stuff. Reported about 17 different anomalies but I don't think the resolution is there. And the wreckage is probably crumpled so is even less likely to be detectable with that image resolution. Just for scale consider that the wingspan is about the width of a 2 lane road. Now break the wings off. Would a single wing be discernable?

That they are finding old wrecks previously unknown is a sign that they are really doing a great job combing the territory.

Actually, that's how this is supposed to work. They show you an image taken since Fossett disappeared, and also provide you with Google Map coordinates.

If you see an anomaly in the recent photo you're shown, you can paste the coordinates into Google Map and compare, looking for differences.

You then report whether you did or didn't see something you think an expert should review. Multiple people are presented the same image to help normalize what's reported.

Hi Chris,

Actually the 'woo woo' crowds latest conspiracy is that the Fossett search is nothing more than a cover story to help find a nuclear cruise missile which fell of a B52, which took off with 6 nuclear cruise missiles from Minot AFB and landed with 5 at Barksdale AFB. Gee you really have to give them credit for imaginative thinking. Hmm lets see how big is a AGM 129 compared to the aircraft Steve Fosset went missing in. Sorry I just couldn't help myself

I've gotta wonder; if this was John Q who was missing, would anyone be going to all this trouble???

I totally agree. No dis-respect to Mr. Fossett and the thousands of volunteers looking for him. I can only hope the next time an airplane goes down or a person(s) goes missing in the wilderness that the same amount of attention, help and dollars would be directed to help in John Q's search...

Just stumbled across this article on msnbc.com

Private search effort for Fossett raises concerns.
Officials worry volunteers who want to help may not have proper training

MINDEN, Nev. - Authorities worried Monday that a call for private volunteers to help the government search the rugged Nevada wilderness for missing aviator Steve Fossett may attract people who don't have proper training and could ultimately need saving themselves.

On Monday, Sanford explained he was most concerned with the possibility that untrained searchers would begin conducting independent ground searches in the rugged, sparsely populated areas where Fossett is believed to be lost. Government-backed searchers also have followed false leads submitted by people looking at satellite images of the area available on the Internet, he said.

The complete article is here.

Quoting from the article:



I find that an odd statement. Wouldn't government-backed searchers first double-check the images themselves before going out? If the images do not look promising then they can decide not to search the area. But if they do look promising then what's the problem?

Gov't backed searchers aren't necessarily satellite imagery analyst geeks. They're just pilots who drink beer and chase loose women when they aren't flying