Sunday, September 09, 2007

How you can help to find Steve Fossett

Google Earth logoAviation legend and adventurer Steve Fossett has been missing for nearly a week. Search teams in multiple aircraft have been scanning rugged terrain in Nevada ever since it was learned that Mr. Fossett had not returned from his flight last Monday. The searchers have found no sign of Fossett or the light aircraft he had been flying, a single-engine Super Decathlon.

Now an additional search method has been organized, and you can participate. Amazon.com is hosting a KML file, which is being used in conjunction with Google Earth to search the area where Steve Fossett and the aircraft may be located. Anyone with a computer can join in the search.

Volunteers are needed to help review satellite imagery of the area where Fossett disappeared and flag potential areas of interest. Here is the link to the instructions for how to search for Steve Fossett on Amazon's Mechanical Turk web site. Aviation news outlet AVweb has provided a page with additional tips and tricks for the search, by editor Jennifer Whitley.

Please help in this effort to locate Steve Fossett. The more eyeballs we have scanning the satellite images of the terrain, the more likely it is that someone will discover something to facilitate the search and rescue effort.