Steve Fossett likely dead, survival experts say

Past survival stories
The region is home to some of the most harrowing survival stories in the West.

The most infamous, the covered-wagon Donner Party, holed up atop the Sierra Nevada during the winter of 1846-47 within 100 miles of what is now the Flying M Ranch airstrip, where Fossett took off on Labor Day.

Farther to the north near the Oregon line, a California couple, James and Jennifer Stolpa, spent eight days snowbound with their infant son just after Christmas 1992. James Stolpa trudged 22 hours through waist-high drifts to find help.

Fossett wouldn’t have faced the bitter cold and snow, but he also couldn’t melt snow and ice for water.

The Stolpas also had some food they were able to stretch for days. The Donner Party resorted to cannibalism toward the end of their ordeal.

'Very, very remote'
The terrain in the vast and remote search area along the California-Nevada line changes quickly from forested mountainsides to rocky canyons and dry lake beds.

One longtime backcountry hiker said the area is “very, very remote” and he doubts Fossett could still be alive.

“As kind of an adventure guy myself, I hope the other way. But I would say it would be really, really tough,” said Kurt Kuznicki of Reno, a member of the conservation group Friends of Nevada Wilderness.

“If a plane didn’t land on a road, I don’t see how it could have held together ... You could get hurt and never be seen again.”

Experts fault Fossett on no itinerary
Shelter from the sun would be just as important as water to Fossett had he survived the crash, added McMullen of the Desert Survivors.

McMullen was stranded with a severely sprained ankle for three nights in Death Valley National Park in September 2001. He hunkered down in the shade of a fig tree before he was rescued by a military helicopter, with the help of a detailed itinerary he had left his wife.

“You’ll lose water faster than you can absorb it in heat, and that’s why a shelter is so important,” McMullen said.

He and other survival experts faulted Fossett for not filing a flight plan, which might have allowed searchers to focus on a smaller area.

“The itinerary I filed for my 2001 hike saved my life,” McMullen said. “They knew where to look for me.”

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