Virgin megamogul Richard Branson is using Google satellite maps in a desperate attempt to find his missing millionaire-adventurer friend, Steve Fossett.
Google’s technology can study pictures shot from space that might help searchers determine the last direction of Fossett’s missing plane and “whether there was anything unusual,” Branson said yesterday.
Fossett’s admirers were counting on his grit and experience as rescuers searched for the plane in the rugged mountains and desert of western Nevada.
Fossett’s single-engine plane vanished Monday as he was scouting dry lake beds for an attempt to set a world land speed record.
“He’s the Number 1 gliding pilot in the world, as well as the Number 1 aviator in the world . . . If anybody could have glided [this plane] down, it would have been him,” said Branson, who helped finance many of Fossett’s adventures.
“But obviously it’s extremely worrying that it’s lasted three days.
“If the worse comes to worse . . . Steve’s lived his life to the full, and he hasn’t wasted a minute of his life.”
Fossett did not file a flight plan. His plane, a Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon, carried a locator that sends a satellite signal after a rough landing, but officials said they had picked up no locator signals from the plane or radio communication.
Even if the plane locator failed, Fossett usually wears a Breitling emergency watch that allows pilots to easily signal their location, said Granger Whitelaw, co-founder of the Rocket Racing League.
“They’re registered to us personally, so they know it’s you,” he said yesterday. There had been no word of such a signal by yesterday.
Rescuers in Nevada had higher hopes of finding something because there was little wind to interfere with their aerial-search efforts, unlike Tuesday, said Gary Derks, operations officer for the Nevada Division of Emergency Management.
The aerial search Tuesday included 14 aircraft conducting grid searches over 7,500 square miles – an area larger than Connecticut. The search yesterday was intended to concentrate on 600 square miles.
It was not known what kind of survival gear, if any, Fossett might have had with him. He was planning just a short flight before returning to a private airstrip.
In 2002, Fossett became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon.
In two weeks, his balloon flew 19,428.6 miles around the Southern Hemisphere.
He set marks for speed or distance in balloons, airplanes, gliders, sailboats – even cross-country skis and an airship, according to his Web site.
In March 2005, he became the first person to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling.
Fossett also has experience as an outdoorsman, climbing some of the world’s best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. With Post Wire Services