12 Sep 2007, ST
Netizens are asked to trawl through satellite images for signs of millionaire Fossett
WASHINGTON - INTERNET users have been asked to join what is being billed as the world's largest search for a missing person: a frame-by-frame trawl through tens of thousands of satellite images for signs of missing adventurer Steve Fossett.
Millionaire Fossett, 63, has not been heard from since Sept 3, when he failed to return after taking off in a single-engine aircraft from a ranch in Nevada. He had been trying to find a suitable site for an attempt at a world land-speed record.
An aviation website, www.avweb.com, is providing links for people to review fresh satellite images, plus instructions on how to look for Mr Fossett's plane or any image that might resemble a small aircraft. The images are provided by DigitalGlobe, the company that supplies images to Google Earth.
After being shown a satellite image, viewers will be asked to check one of two boxes.
Netizens are asked to trawl through satellite images for signs of millionaire Fossett
WASHINGTON - INTERNET users have been asked to join what is being billed as the world's largest search for a missing person: a frame-by-frame trawl through tens of thousands of satellite images for signs of missing adventurer Steve Fossett.
Millionaire Fossett, 63, has not been heard from since Sept 3, when he failed to return after taking off in a single-engine aircraft from a ranch in Nevada. He had been trying to find a suitable site for an attempt at a world land-speed record.
An aviation website, www.avweb.com, is providing links for people to review fresh satellite images, plus instructions on how to look for Mr Fossett's plane or any image that might resemble a small aircraft. The images are provided by DigitalGlobe, the company that supplies images to Google Earth.
After being shown a satellite image, viewers will be asked to check one of two boxes.
HOW TO HELP: Users are asked to review the satellite images and alert the website hosting these images if they spot any object that may resemble a small aircraft. Mr Fossett was last seen flying a single-engine aircraft.
One says the image 'contains foreign objects that should be looked at more closely'. Viewers will then be asked to describe them. The other box says the image contains nothing of interest.
'This is kind of a new thing for us,' said Civil Air Patrol spokesman Cynthia Ryan.
She said every Google-generated tip is reviewed and the best ones passed on to pilots. So far, there have been several false sightings of Mr Fossett's airplane.
Mr Fossett is described as an expert survivalist, but hopes of finding him alive are fading fast as his plane had disappeared in a huge area.
False leads and frustration dogged the hunt at the weekend. It is hoped that allowing Internet users to trawl though satellite images of the area available online may provide new leads in the search.
A private search effort is also in progress, being driven in part by hotel magnate Barron Hilton, who has opened the airstrip at his Flying-M Ranch to private search planes and helicopters. Mr Fossett took off from the ranch's runway more than a week ago.
While the private search party has worked side by side with the government during the eight-day hunt, officials said they are becoming worried that the latest call for volunteers could bring in people who are unfamiliar with the vast and often dangerous landscape.
'It has not been condoned, nor is it necessarily helpful to the law enforcement community,' Lyon County Undersheriff Joe Sanford said on Sunday. 'We don't want searchers to have to go out to look for searchers.'
Major Ryan said the search, which now covers about 44,000 sq km - an area as big as the Malaysian states of Pahang and Selangor - will continue indefinitely.
The effort will stop when searchers have 'exhausted every square inch, and we aren't even close to that', she said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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