Fossett widow to be billed for search

Yea it looks like they are doing this only because they have money. I hope they fight it and win. This could lead down the wrong road and cause real problems in the future for a wide range of people.

It might be one thing if the widow requested additional searches above and beyond the norm. But if not, and they normally don't charge people for this, then I'd probably just ignore the bill. If the states wants to pursue that non-payment into court, so be it. You'd think they'd have to show why one person should be billed and not another.

Yup. Once the precident is set it could become that famous american stereotype come true:

"You'd like us to look for your lost husband ma'am? Please make the deposit check out to..."

"I'm afraid we had to use the helicopter to bring in catering for the searchers...that'll be an additional charge."

I know how tight money can be for a volunteer organization but as a SAR responder I'd feel bad enough about not finding anything let alone knowing that the guys widow got billed for the trouble.

Makes me wonder if maybe the effort was a bit of a SNAFU and now they're trying to cover their mistakes with cash. He's a high profile millionaire and I'd bet that there were so many chef's in the kitchen during the search that they couldn't have found his plane if it had crashed into them. I'd also bet they kept going long after they knew they should have quit because of the publicity of failing. Most searches in these parts are done in 4 hours. Gone are the days of multi-week and month long searches...the organization and management techniques are too good and the technology has improved a great deal.

I'm going to go out on a limb here... and probably get a lot of people upset with me, but I don't see paying for someone to come and look for you as such a bad thing. I'm not saying this trolling or anything like that. I know accidents happen but it takes resources to rescue people. Why should taxpayers foot the entiere bill. Especially if there is negligence involved on the individuals part.

I have been part of several S&R operations, 3 people I've been out in a group with, 1 person I was in the vicinity and have spent time looking for people on 2 different occasions. On all 6 of those occasions some negligence contributed to the injury of the individual or in the individual getting lost. Perhaps if there was a monetary incentive people would be a little more prepared and careful when out and playing around.

I think they would have better luck in the billing process IF they had found remains or the crash site.
How can they bill for a job they did not finish or complete?

I wouldn't pay the plumber if he didn't fix my pipes, so I wouldn't pay the SAR if they don't find my lost husband.

First, is the tradition by which we, as a nation provide for emergency response, it is a public service. Generally, we do not charge for fire, police and rescue services, except through taxes. Until recently, most communities did not even charge for EMS services, although this has changed, when health insurance plans and Medicaid/Medicare started to provide payment for EMS services. The rich should not get one level of public service and the poor another, so we disperse the cost for these services though taxes.

In many cases, the recipients of SAR services are not the ones to have asked for the service. I am not sure of legal issues surrounding the request by a third party for services and then charging for that service to an individual or group of individuals who never requested the service. Even if I am the one to request SAR services and have to pay for the service, do I not then have the right to select the organization I want to provide the service, perhaps one with greater resources and success, as well as the level of response? It is not realistic or practical to start designating whom you want to provide the service, so cost recovery then becomes a monopoly. Unless we have previously contracted with private provides of emergency protective/provider services (which does exist), there should be no exclusivity of provider services.

Pete

So we only send SAR out for those that can afford it? Or do we charge every one foe the SAR teams that search for people? What happens if the person lost dosen't have the resources to pay for a SAR team does he/she just get left where they are?

My main problem with this is no one has been charged before why is she being charged. There was a larger search put on for Fossett than for any ole Joe Blow the Ragman off the street. If she requested searches and/or teams above the ordinary then yes she should cover those cost but not the entire search.

While I appreciate the notion that the taxpayers should not pay for searches, it is just short sighted and misguided. Searches are costly and charging for them would mean only people who could afford it are going to be rescued. Rescuing someone and saving them is more important than money most of the time. Also, in this case where was the negligence? Because he flew in an experimental plane? What about the Cessna that goes down? "Well, they decided to fly over the mountains". Charging is the wrong thing to do.

In that case there should be an itemized bill with deductions for salaries, real world experience in place of training time, etc. which would have been paid anyway.

Sounds pretty slimey to me.

I'd say that's for sure.

Personally I don't think the effort to locate Mr. Fossett should have been any more than if it had been one of us in his shoes.
I think we could all agree that the resources put forth for this SAR were far greater than "normal". However, I don't think the state of Nevada should be trying to bill someone for this unless prior agreements were made. Everyone should receive the same level of service, if you want more than normal, it's going to cost.
Just my .02 cents.

smitty

Why should taxpayers have to pay for methadone clinics for heroin addicts? I don't know, but I pay for this and I don't benefit from it. I'd rather my taxes pay for SAR activities.

But that same plumber can go to any hospital ER in America, get treated for his heart attack, take up an ICU bed for 2 days (at $3000/day), and a hospital bed for 3, and then skip out on paying anything.

Who reimburses the hospital, staff, and physicians? You realize that Medi/Medi pay something like $30 for an office visit, and only a fraction of the charges of any real health care?

At $30/patient, is it any wonder that physicians keep office visits under 10 minutes? They have hundreds of thousands in debt they need to pay off.

SAR, like EMS and health care, should be paid for. It's a service, not a "right" - at least until the laws in the US are changed.

But you shouldn't charge some people and not others. I would have no complaints about some kind of "SAR insurance". We have something like that here in Colorado. That's why I buy a fishing license every year, even though I rarely fish anymore. Part of that money goes to SAR - for me if I need it, for others if I don't.

Wow, this is the first time I've noticed a total reversal in this group (perhaps its not just the unprepared who have short memories). It seems like just a moment ago we were discussing some sort of "stupidity charge" or other surcharge for people needing rescue. While it may not be exactly the same respondents here as in other posts I find it amusing that only one or two people are now willing to come forward and say, "Yes charge the person for the cost of rescue." He didn't file a detailed flight plan (or deviated from one he did file), he had lots of gee whiz gadgets he didn't carry that might have saved his life and the time and money of the state and he (and now his widow) will by no means be beggared by having to pay for the search. If you were going to start charging people for rescue, he sounds like he'd be a prime candidate. I'm not saying its right or wrong to do so, but there seems to be a slight inconsistency. (Granted not every one responded favorably to charging for searches then either, but in general that was the way the wind blew).

He’d be a prime candidate for one reason, it’s palatable to people. There is an underlining feeling in this country to hate the rich and to want them to pay any time we can make them pay. Many people pile on to this attitude and in doing this with this guy it does in fact set a precedent for the following times and soon it will be the way it’s done for all.

Yes this family can pay for this, but in the future lower income people will not be able to. Can you right now pay the $700,000 they want to collect? I would guess not.


But sadly peoples hate for those with more money then they have will probably win this case and in the future anyone who ventures out into nature will have to wonder if they should just stay home with a remote in their hand and just watch tv because of what the government will charge them if any accident were to ever happen.

This is not a good thing.

It's not? Gee - we won't have to spend as much money maintaining the parks, or SAR crews, the animals will be left in peace in nature, and the populace will become more docile, so we can control them better. What's NOT to like? ( sarcasim off )

I also can't afford a private plane to fly off into the boonies without a flight plan (heck, I don't go for a walk in the woods without filing a flight plan with a friend). I can't afford a Breitling watch with a built in ELT I can leave on the bed side table. My friends don't own Google, so I probably won't have hundreds or thousands of people reviewing google earth imagery to try to find me. Nor do I expect the civil air patrol will muster fourteen aircraft to come find me. Over all, I doubt 50,000 people would be involved in search for me.

Is it distasteful for the Governor to send his widow a bill? Is that a double standard? Yes. But I don't find the current double standard any less distasteful either.

I think all of the citizens in the country deserve the same treatment from the government. If that means we send two dozen people to search for some guy no-one ever heard of, we send two dozen guys out to look for Brad Pitt. Or we send fourteen aircraft and thousands of searchers out to look for everyone who goes missing. Equality baby.

And I would be perfectly happy paying an insurance premium out to pay for search and rescue, especially if I was flying a small airplane or mountain climbing in winter or otherwise intentionally putting myself in extra danger.

I do not hate the rich. But I really dislike it when they don't say "I can afford to pay more, so I will". Greedy hedonists will always tick me off. Money is a kind of power, and a great many of those that have it aren't using it wisely.

Sending The Fossett estate a bill I don't agree with. But I just am just as annoyed if they haven't tried to make donations to the agencies that participated in the search to refund the cost of fuel and supplies, and maybe even to improve those agencies' capabilities.

How many thousands of gallons of av gas were burned? How many people on foot were there? They had imaging satellites tasked to looking for him, federal and private. If I go missing, I'll get one or two aircraft for an afternoon, and maybe a couple of dozen ground searchers for a couple of days. The state isn't going to bring in search teams from other parts of the country. And no one will be talking congresscritters into having the NRO lend a hand. And my estate, such as it is, would do it's damnedest to make a contribution to the agencies that did show up.

Once the government (state or federal) gets the taste of this so far untapped source of money it will go after it with a vengeance.

No it won't.

Unlike the top 1% of the population who controls 25% or so of the private, non-corporate wealth in this country, the rest of us can't afford to buy congresscritters... sorry, hire lobbists and make campaign contributions.

Welcome to the fatal flaw of a republic.

This has become yet another political rant. It is my view that charging for SAR efforts is appropriate. However, this is not the venue to which such issues should be debated, as we have been recently admonished by the moderators to cease and desist so doing.

Either we abide by the rules or we risk losing the privilege. Its up to all of us to comply.

I agree with a few of the previous posters, she should pay for whatever resources were used to find Fosset that were in excess of what would have been used to find any other citizen.


As for actually paying for the SAR that was not in excess, as someone pointed out before, he wasn't on one of his risky expeditions, he was just flying a plane, so he should be accorded the same service as any one else.

If he had been trying one of his record breaking stunts , then I would agree he should be charged.

I'd agree if it was at the family's request. If the state continued to search without a request, why should she be held to any different standard than other people have?

I doubt this is a matter of rich vs. poor, its simple economics. A very expensive search, made more expensive apparently at the request of Fossett's friends and family. The best mainstream account of the search for Steve Fossett was printed in Adventure magazine a few weeks ago, have a read: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/news/steve-fossett.html.

In there his friend Mark Marshall and primary organizer of the family's interests in the search is quoted (emphasis added): "Bunch said that some areas had been checked up to six times. Mark Marshall, Fossett's staff pilot, had called a couple of days earlier and **offered to pay team expenses.** "He told me, 'Don't stop searching because you don't have enough money.' Well, it's not lack of money that's stopping us. We have run out of places to search."

On such promises do attorney's rely, and bureaucrats who want to fund future SAR efforts rely as well. What SAR hasn't spent the next year's budget on an earnest search for a lost victim? And then spend 9 months fundraising to make it up? No one has spoken up, but the expense of the aerial and ground search was massive, beyond covering with bake sales and gear raffles. And lets be real, this isn't a matter of charging a grieving widow, its a matter of expensing a large estate at least some aspects of a SAR effort that were renewed at it's request. I suspect that any funds recovered from the estate will just pay for the next year's CAP fuel budget, which has gotta be pretty heavy given the increase in fuel prices lately.

I think the article's summary is pretty sobering, that for all the work and effort, it wasn't a very effective search, given the terrain and other aspects. Here's the money quote if you don't read the article in full:

"He knew from scouting work for the mine that the mountains nearby had steep, narrow, and tree-cloaked canyons a thousand or more feet deep. They couldn't be adequately scoped from the air, and many could be accessed only on foot. The search teams, he accurately noted, rarely strayed from their 4x4s. "I know this country, and when I saw them come through, I had to laugh," he said. "Just because you're search and rescue doesn't mean you know how to find someone."

The criticism was harsh and somewhat unfair. The search area for Fossett was so vast that planes, helicopters, trucks, and ATVs were essential. The searchers I met were deeply knowledgeable about the terrain and committed to finding Fossett. But—and there's no delicate way to put this—physical fitness didn't seem to be a priority for many of them. They were passionate about hunting, fishing, and ATVing, but they weren't backcountry types. These were traditional search and rescue operations, managed by county sheriffs' departments, not hard-core wilderness teams, the kind you find in the country's marquee national parks.

This hurt the effort. Here I stood in the area pinpointed by the investigation's two best clues, the radar tag and the eyewitness. It was rugged terrain, the sort that is particularly adept at keeping its secrets. And it was obvious that it hadn't been adequately searched. In the past month some of the most advanced technologies in the history of search and rescue had aided the quest. Maybe what was needed was a lot more boots on dirt."

And in retrospect this wasn't the public fascination with the rich, its more like the fascination our parents and grandparents had with Amelia Earhart, flying around the world - that SAR effort was run by the military, and the greatest ever launched at the time, with no greater hope of success than this one. This part of Nevada is unforgiving of pilot error or downdrafts, and if they do find Fossett's craft it will likely be smashed to smithereens on a mountainside or deep in a valley they had 'searched' many times before. If we can get past this issue of rich vs. poor, maybe there's some lessons in here similar to the Kim incident in Oregon.

SAR workers are volunteers and there aren't strict requirements on fitness...though it's taken seriously by any group I'm familiar with. A volunteer might only be involved in a handful of searches a year...and an event that big would likely draw out even the most inactive members.

He was right though. There's no substitute for 'dirt on boots'. If the terrain is bad, then it just takes you longer to search it...even if that means taking 4 hours to move 1 mile in a straight line.

To add more to this mix, The hilton's offered a huge reward, about
2 million if I remember right, and the onsueing hoard of freelance
searchers (mostly in planes) seriously endangered and hampered the civil air patrol
and others in the official search.

In most cases the lost and injured shouldn't be billed.

There are still places they haven't searched. I know of one eyewitness to a crash at that time that has not been checked out yet.
Our SAR group is headed down soon to get some nice backcountry
skiing in and see if any debris has melted out yet at the site.

Good point actually.

On one hand I like the idea that anyone, regardless of how well liked or their ability to pay for it, gets rescued if it is humanly possible to do it.

To some extent commercial and military rescue is dependent on publicly financed rescue activity to develop new techniques and maintain their skills. Public rescue organizations, going back to early firefighters and storm-shore lifeboat services, have lead the way in developing new methods and maintaining standards.

The operators in combat search and rescue organizations, historically, might see one or two actual combat rescues in their entire career. Not enough to keep their skills honed. Training exercises are good but they are not as good as real experience in real situations with lives on the line and a situation that doesn't stick to a script. While civilian rescues cost time, money and, wear and tear on equipment they pay off in real-world experience and expanded capability.

In this light I'm tempted to call for free rescue of everyone and to hell with the cost.

On the other hand this is essentially socialization of risk and rescue. We have seen the rise of well-off danger-junky adventure chasers. Well-heeled people who go out of their way to do outrageously dangerous, sometimes stupid, stunts just for the notoriety and thrill. These people take advantage of our urge to go out and rescue people to pull their nuts out of the fire if their stunt goes wrong. Sometimes to the point of using rescue services for cheap transportation. Half way up the mountain they decide they no longer want to be out in the sticks. So they get on their cell-phone and claim they are in an emergency. Using expensive rescue services as a personal taxi. With the taxpayer picking up the check.

From this perspective if you get yourself in trouble you pay for the rescue. People getting themselves into dangerous situations need to have the money on hand or purchase an insurance policy that will cover the costs.

In the end I think there has to be some sort of mix of the two. To the extent that the activity that gets you into trouble is normal and considered reasonable the public goes out of their way to go out and get you. To the extent your being stupid and failing to take reasonable precautions in when and where you go and what gear you carry your on your own to rescue yourself or to provide financing for your rescue.

There might be some consideration of the relative wealth of the individuals and their families. If Bill Gates gets himself into a bind I don't think it is unreasonable for him to be required to chip in on the cost of his rescue.

To the extent Fossett was undertaking an unreasonable activity and was unreasonably unprepared and to the extent he, or his family, is wealthy then it isn't unreasonable to think they should pay some proportion of the costs.

I have no way of knowing how reasonable or unreasonable Fossett's activity and preparations may have been. I don't know how well off he or his family is. If or how much the family should be asked to pay isn't something I could decide.

Actually, Ben ,I think politics could be a part of it. Literally.

I wonder if the Governor has a competitor who might have been about to make hay about this SAR call, which was very much out of the ordinary.

The true percentage of the income of the top 1% is hard to estimate, but it's probably closer to 10%.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6863

1. She can afford it, so why didn't she OFFER to pay for the search?

2. Only $700,000 for a big, wide-ranging, month-long search like that? REALLY? Why was it so cheap? $23,000 a day doesn't seem like it would cover all the expenses incurred.

Sue

No, but you also have to take into account how much they already pay. In 2005 (latest year I found numbers for), the top 1% of taxpayers paid over 39% of the personal income taxes that year.



Bill it at overtime rates. Same thing goes for exceptionally risky activities (ie mountain climbing in winter) w/o proper planning and equipment including some form of locator beacon.



Required? See above. Should the organizations involved have a very good year on fund raising? Yes. With his money I'd ask them what they needed.

Lets face it the stupid rich, pun intended, can have their cake and eat it too. I mean really, why bother getting a bill for roughly 700,000 dollars when they could just as easily "donate" a cool million they can spare, then turn around and take it as a tax write off. SAR gets funding, wealthy gets a tax break via 1 million dollars loss of gross taxable income.

-Bill Liptak
Not bitter or hating the rich, just trying to think like 'em......maybe some of their money will rub off

Hadn't thought of the tax write off. That gets him back down to the 700k neighborhood. While there should be consequences for stupidity and criminal charges for calling for SAR w/o an actual emergency, it's better than the state setting a precedence when it may be a case of bad luck.

[Quote/]No, but you also have to take into account how much they already pay. In 2005 (latest year I found numbers for), the top 1% of taxpayers paid over 39% of the personal income taxes that year. [Quote/]

No need to hash out the fairness of the tax codes here but I think two things need to be said:

1) Comparing income taxes alone between income groups doesn't fairly represent the relative burdens. The tax code grants many exemptions and ways of offsetting income into less taxable categories. As the incomes increase and the numbers become more impressive it becomes increasingly profitable to employ tax specialists to shield income.

A game played by a roommate years ago was that he had a relatively low official income but a lot of perquisites. These then were listed as expenses but low balled to keep the dollar amount of benefits down. Housing, car, boat and use of an airplane were all done this way. He lived like a king slumming it and paid less total tax than I did working a dollar over minimum wage and paying payroll taxes. The difference made possible by tax laws that favor the rich, while allowing them to claim 'they pay more' and his families accountant. He would laugh and joke about how well he lived off 'nothing' and owned nothing.

2) People needing rescue from wilderness areas and far offshore tend to be from the higher end of the income curve. People working minimum wage jobs don't generally tend to climb distant mountains, camp in the deep wilderness or go very far offshore. Their recreation tends to be more urban.