Sensation hunters still do not believe in the death of Fossett or in those circumstances of his death that seem to have cleared up. Fossett's "inattention" on the last flight was deliberate, they proclaim. Like, Fossett escaped from his wife and hides, simulating his death. Indeed, Fossett disappeared on the eve of the divorce proceedings with his wife, whom the constant antics of his extreme spouse frankly got
Two ankles - that's all that remains of a millionaire, an athlete, a traveler and a person strong in spirit and body …
… who has set 116 records in five sports. Nobody had done this before. Who will be after - no one knows.
Steve Fossett left, leaving the Earthlings bewildered. He flew into the hot Nevada desert and disappeared. 13 months later, after being officially declared dead and after speculation about a deliberately rigged disappearance, his remains were found much west of the trajectory of the route - in the mountains of California. Why and how Fossett's plane crashed in the Cordillera Spurs remains to be seen by experts. The traveler's body does not exist - it has been eaten by wild animals in a year. But even after his death, Fossett continues to excite public attention.
He set records in airships, hot air balloons and single-engine aircraft. He traveled around the world on a yacht, setting speed records and conquering marathon distances. He traveled dog sleds around Alaska and participated in auto racing. He set his first record when he was 41. The next 22 years were filled with a constant craving for new records. He put them one after another and amazed everyone with his tenacity. One, two, three, six attempts - and now he makes a round the world in a balloon. 30.6 thousand kilometers over the Southern Hemisphere - and Fossett becomes the first person to make a solitary circumnavigation.
During his travels, Fossett found himself in situations where his life literally hung by a thread. The first attempt to fly around the Earth in a balloon in 1997 ended in failure: he had to make an emergency landing on the territory of Russia, in the Krasnodar Territory. In 1998, he almost died when a hurricane damaged his balloon at an altitude of 8.8 thousand meters above Australia, and the traveler fell into the Coral Sea. In August 2001, bad weather forced Fossett to plant his hot air balloon on a farm in Brazil. But he immediately began planning a new attempt to fly alone around the Earth - and achieved success the following year.
Fossett's biography under 40 is not particularly remarkable. As if fate gave him good luck in the uncomplicated field of making money only so that at 41 he could make the whole world talk about himself, and at 48 he could start setting world records.
Stephen Fossett was born in California in April 1944. Graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in business administration. The classic path of a successful American businessman: he started trading stocks on the stock exchange in Chicago, later he founded the financial company Marathon Securities, which brought him multimillion-dollar profits.
When he was 41 years old, he swam across the English Channel in 1985. And not on the first try (Fossett usually didn't get anything right away). And in 1992 he took part in a dog race in Alaska. In his autobiography, Chasing the Wind, Fossett recalled that during these competitions he had to … bite the leader dog to make it run faster.
As a mountaineer, Fossett has climbed over 400 mountain peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. In almost all cases, he set records for the speed of ascent.
In 1996, he took part in the 24-hour endurance car race, which takes place annually in the vicinity of the French city of Le Mans. Didn't win, came 36th. After that, he switched to the conquest of the oceans, including the air. And here true glory awaited him.
In 2002, he became the first person to single-handedly travel around the world in a hot air balloon - he flew 30.6 thousand km in the Southern Hemisphere, spending two weeks in a basket.
Three years later, Fossett set the record for a solo airplane flight around the world without stopping or refueling. The device "GlobalFlyer" specially created for this trip covered 37 thousand kilometers in 67 hours.
Fossett is also known as the world's most successful sprinter sailor with 20 different sailing world records.
But he felt best of all in the air. On March 3, 2005, Stephen successfully completed the first ever nonstop round-the-world flight without refueling, covering 36 thousand 898 kilometers in 67 hours. He broke the record for the longest non-stop flight, which was set in 1962 by the crew of the American B-52 bomber.
In April 2006, he set his 111th record, having completed the "absolute round-the-world flight", having spent less than 75 hours in the air and covered more than 40 thousand kilometers during this time!
Fossett was soon inducted into the American Aviation Hall of Fame in Ohio.
“I hope you are not giving me this award because my career is over. My song hasn’t been sung yet,”he said then.
Several months remained until the last flight …
This cheerful American grandfather has surpassed all possible extreme sportsmen. People envied him much more than billionaires. By the way, Fossett never, for all his eccentric and often ostentatious modesty, did not hide the fact that he considered himself an outstanding traveler and sportsman. In one of the interviews, Uncle Steve said that he loves to read, especially biographies and memoirs of "colleagues" - famous travelers. Even going on a solo flight or a cruise around the Earth, he always took such a book with him.
And then came September 3, 2007. World news agencies reported: Fossett is missing. He went on a flight over Nevada to select a suitable dry lake. There, the millionaire wanted to try to set a new speed record for wheeled transport. He had fuel for five hours, he did not take a parachute. This means that he fell or was forced to land somewhere in a desolate, difficult terrain. Fourteen planes were thrown in search, rescue services combed the territory with large gorges, but in vain.
Suspicions immediately arose: could this man get lost in the wilderness, flying on a clear day in a small plane? The absence of a flight plan suggests that he had a clear intention to take off and land on the same runway. The failure of the aircraft radio beacon is due to a known disadvantage of older aircraft. Why did Stephen leave his personal beacon - a wristwatch, given that he knew about the unreliability of an aircraft radio beacon and took off alone, without indicating a destination or flight path?
Sensation hunters still do not believe in the death of Fossett or in those circumstances of his death that seem to have cleared up. Fossett's "inattention" on the last flight was deliberate, they proclaim. Like, Fossett escaped from his wife and hides, simulating his death. Indeed, Fossett disappeared on the eve of the divorce proceedings with his wife, whom the constant antics of his extreme spouse frankly got.
One version was followed by another. “He's just tired of life and lives under a false name somewhere in Canada or on distant islands,” some say. “He suffered a disaster and was killed,” others say. The latest version was dispelled after Fossett's money was found - murder for the purpose of robbery can definitely be ruled out.
Even the original idea was born that Fossett flew in his plane on purpose in the so-called. "Area 51" in Nevada is the one where the remnants of UFOs are supposedly stored and some experiments of the US Air Force are certainly being carried out. As if in this way he wanted to disappear, being … arrested. Or, more likely, Fossett, deliberately or accidentally finding himself in the mysterious zone, was shot down, after which the special services had to decide for a long time how to deal with the hoax of his death. First, it was necessary to delay the search as much as possible, let the problem “settle”, transfer it to the category of “mysteries of the century” and then solve it in the most banal way by throwing the plane and Fossett's things into a remote California gorge hundreds of kilometers from the route of his last flight.
However, this version is also vulnerable. If the retrieval of Fossett's documents could have been rigged, what about the plane and the DNA examination? Photos of the plane were distributed around the world, and it was Fossett's plane that was identified on them, the design of which was unique. It would have been much easier to leave Fossett in the "Missing Persons" section altogether, rather than flaunting the wreckage to journalists that could be easily identified by experts. If the plane was shot down, then the nature of its damage should be different. So far, it is only obvious that the plane fell apart in the air (parts of the fuselage were found in the trees), and the cockpit hit the ground, leaving Fossett no chance.
The disappearance of the body is, of course, suspicious, and this is the most mysterious in this story. A month of research in a closed laboratory and the public unconditionally presented: the found ankle joints belong to Fossett. The relatives sighed calmly - the eccentric millionaire is dead, you shouldn't be afraid of his return from some cunning refuge, which means you can dispose of the inheritance. So they are unlikely to require re-examination of DNA.
The search in the area where the remains were found quickly turned off immediately after the discovery of these very bones. No other bone fragments were found. Where were the state police in a hurry? Who did the sheriff call immediately upon finding the wreckage? After all, the relatives were informed of the find only on the second day, after the bones and documents were seized for research in the laboratory. Although at the same time, the wreckage of the aircraft and the documents found were allowed to be photographed by reporters. Maybe these photos will help you find out how and where the millionaire died?
Riddles in the death of the great traveler still remain. Well, conspiracy theorists have been thrown another topic for many years. In any case, one thing is clear: Stephen Fossett left as he lived - eccentrically, at speed and making everyone talk about himself.
Eternal memory to him!
Victor Rogutsky