UPDATE 1: My contact at mTurk received the coordinates and passed them to the experts. The story continues…
UPDATE 2: Some people have pointed out that the plane could be flying. Look below for my analysis of this. Basically I need to remember more about geometry, but two things keep me hopeful: the plane is the right size and the “shadow” seems to come from the North.
As if they were writing a how to manual for the Internet community, WIRED Magazine ran a story only a few months ago about the search for Jim Gray, presumed lost at sea.
Part of the story told of how thousands of people joined the search for the missing Silicon Valley legend by browsing through thousands of satellite images on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
Today, the Internet community and MTurkers were called into action to find another ledgend: American aviator, Steve Fossett, lost since last Tuesday.
When I got an email from Amazon to pitch in, I went to the website immediately to participate in what seemed to me was an extraordinary display of community and the power of community. Because the search for Mr. Fossett was so much about community, I also forwarded the email to the nextNY and NY Tech Meetup email lists, of which I am an active member.
After doing 80 HITs (tasks, looking at images on mTurk), I had to leave my house. During that time, I had one frame which looks suspicious, but to no avail. However, when I got home, I saw an email from Paul Norris, who had read my email on one of the lists:
Hi Nate,
I’m a big fan of the guy so went looking.
First hit I found a “plane”:
38°28′55.90″N
119°24′18.75″W
But then Google Earth crashed.
Check it out and send it on, if you have a contact.
It may just be one of the many other lost planes…Paul
Sure enough, if you load those coordinates on Google Earth (along with this super important .kml file from Google), there you see a place. Turn off the new layer, and its gone (which means it could be pretty recent).
Anyway, I’m about to write an email to someone I met at Web 2 Expo who works in the mTurk division, but if you know someone specifically who works there, here’s a positive hit which never got in the engine.
This could be Steve Fossett.
Click the thumbnail to see it larger, or click here to see the photo to see on Flickr.
UPDATE: Some people have pointed out that the plane could be in flight. I’m not remembering everything I need to know about geometry right now, but I would imagine that there would be some sort of enlargement to the plane if it was flying, though considering these are satellite photos, that could be very negligible.
Anyway, check out the measurements I did on Google Earth, and reference the diagram below, provided by Amazon, which shows the plane is the right size, more or less (note that the edged of the plane were pixelated, so I measured from the center of the outer fuzziness).
The only other issue is what some folks think is a shadow (which would indicate that the plane is in flight). I think that’s plausible, but it also seems that the “shadow” is to the south of the plane, which — if I remember this correctly — doesn’t make much sense (wouldn’t something in the northern hemisphere have a shadow to its north?). Of course the mountain under it could be affecting the shadow as well.
Click the thumbnail to see it larger, or click here to see the photo to see on Flickr.
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43 responses so far ↓
1 David // Sep 9, 2007 at 9:10 pm
definitely a plane - whether it’s flying or on the ground is the question …
2 Nate Westheimer // Sep 9, 2007 at 9:17 pm
David, I think that’s possible. We’ll soon learn, I hope!
3 David // Sep 9, 2007 at 9:23 pm
apparently not :(
http://www.iconnectdots.com/ctd/2007/09/is-this-steve-f.html
4 Shaun Chapman // Sep 9, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Has anyone seen the similar plane flying a few hundred metres in front of this one?
5 Nate Westheimer // Sep 9, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Can you post the coordinates? I looked around on Google Earth but found nothing more.
6 David // Sep 9, 2007 at 11:53 pm
there’s another plane at 38°33′44.15″N 119°19′37.18″W
One that intrigues me is at 38°21′31.04″N 119° 3′49.66″W
Fossetts plane was blue and white, and while it’s probably an imaging artifact, you can see something that could be a blue wing in amongst the trees
7 Nate Westheimer // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:17 am
David,
Using the Ruler tool on Google Earth, it appears that the plane in the first set of coordinates you provide is too long (comes in at 25.3 feet long).
Unfortunately, the second set of coordinates did not yield an image with a plane for me. Can you double check those?
8 Ruslan // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:19 am
Check this out:
38°19′13.37″N
118°59′23.87″W
38.191337,-118.592387
9 Nate Westheimer // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:33 am
Ruslan, I didn’t see much, but what blip was there seemed too small. Again, assuming the ruler tool in Google Earth works.
10 jimmy // Sep 10, 2007 at 5:43 am
what about this?
38°18?36.41?N
119°13?14.94?W
11 jimmy // Sep 10, 2007 at 6:09 am
possible crash?
38°10?11.89?N
119°24?21.32?W
12 Robin // Sep 10, 2007 at 6:47 am
Maybe this one?
38°33′44.23″N
119°19′37.11″W
Although its a bit big maybe?
13 Andy // Sep 10, 2007 at 11:13 am
This could be the remains of a downed plane. Its about the right dimensions
38°45′9.31″N
119°25′12.44″W
14 simon // Sep 10, 2007 at 8:22 pm
downed light aircraft at:
38.466568,-119.159775
15 Darren // Sep 10, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I see what appears to be an aircraft at 38°41′54.29″N 119° 2′14.01″W
16 Steve S // Sep 11, 2007 at 2:46 am
Here’s one that is recent and could be a plane nose-down, but the wingspan is much greater than Fossett’s plane. Has this been reported anywhere?
38°51?18.53?N 119° 19?26.54?W
17 Shawn S // Sep 11, 2007 at 8:52 am
Does 38°13′35.71″N, 119°26′17.48″W look like a plane to anyone else? The width seems about right.
18 ScarJack // Sep 11, 2007 at 1:09 pm
There’s another plane:
38°52′30.83″N 119°21′48.53″W
19 Brad Eichmann // Sep 11, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I wonder if there is a satallite image from a week before Steve’s crash. You could compare the two and rule out potential planes pretty easily.
20 Brad Eichmann // Sep 11, 2007 at 1:59 pm
This one is EXACTLY his plane’s measurements…
38°18′35.93″N
119°20′47.43″W
21 Mario // Sep 11, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Check this out: it look like a plane on it’s side:
38°10′11.91″N 119°24′21.30″W
22 Brad Eichmann // Sep 11, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Mario, it does but its like 45 feet long. Could be another plane.
23 Nate Westheimer // Sep 11, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Mario. That’s VERY interesting. Of all of these, i looks promising. Did you mTurk it?
24 WLK // Sep 12, 2007 at 1:35 am
Has anyone considered he traveled further than the search area- looking for a dry lake bed- in western NV and heading south from take-off- could he have entered the restricted space of area 51 or some other place?
Please forgive the conspiracy aspect of this… just thinking- he hasn’t been found yet- where else might he be… and a map puts him relatively close to some restricted areas.
25 Brad Eichmann // Sep 12, 2007 at 8:58 am
He was a pretty savvy pilot, so I highly doubt he drifted into unrestricted airspace.
26 Brad Eichmann // Sep 12, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Is the google search area too small?
Steve had the ability to travel at 115 miles per hour with a range of 560 miles.
Reports say he was only planning on a two hour trip. so I would assume one hour there, one back.
That means the farthest he would travel is 115 miles. The google map from GEO is only 30 miles wide.
Thoughts?
27 Nate Westheimer // Sep 12, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I wonder… they haven’t said much about what info they knew about his flight pattern and what it has to do with the area photographed…
28 Brad Eichmann // Sep 12, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Actually, I read an article that said they actually think he was out joy-flying. They also said he probably didn’t stray more than 30 miles from the ranch and that they think he went down less than 30 miles away.
29 Ryan // Sep 12, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Has anyone noticed that this new GeoEye layer (the updated sat imagery) is slightly shifted from the primary database imagery? I know this really won’t affect finding him or not, but the coordinates won’t match up…
30 Ryan // Sep 12, 2007 at 3:25 pm
In fact… I just measured between to geographic features and the distance shift is 3,650 ft. That’s quite a bit. It makes switching back and fourth (to check to see if an anomaly existed in the old imagery) difficult…
31 Nate Westheimer // Sep 12, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Well, I think the silly thing is that all this data isn’t available. They want folks to do the HITs on mTurk, but they won’t let us be more creative than that. How old is that old imagery? Where are the confirmed older crashes? We need this information to help.
32 Ryan // Sep 12, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Does anyone have the coordinates of the ranch he departed from?
33 Brad Eichmann // Sep 12, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Ryan, he took off from here….
38°36′13.86″N
119° 0′10.89″W
You will notice some small places, a long stretch of grass (pressumably the runway) and another dirt runway above it.
34 Brad Eichmann // Sep 12, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Nate, I have to agree with you on that one.
I feel as though there could be a much more efficient way to go about this.
I saw on a google earth discussion board that the searchers (ones in planes) are looking in an area not even on the GEO map.
35 Lance Isaksen // Sep 12, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Can someone look at these and see if they help? I used the ruler to verify they are approx. the right size.
38° 2′9.29″N
119°28′45.89″W
and
38° 1′56.44″N
119°28′52.97″W
36 Mike Taylor // Sep 12, 2007 at 9:18 pm
If a plane went down, I doubt you’d be seeing the entire top of the aircraft as seen from above in level flight. It so, then there’d probably be a trail showing behind it. Torn brush, skidmarks, etc.
Must likely the craft would be setting at a weird angle with parts broken off and maybe black burn marks around it.
If the plane did not have retractable landing gear and it came in flat in rough terrain, then it probably flipped over .
Anyone know the date and time of the latest Turk image (is there more than one)? I’m guessing a little after noon based on the shadows at the Flying M Ranch. But, there’s no knowing if all image strips were taken at the same time.
37 Lance Isaksen // Sep 13, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Can someone take a look at these coordinates?
38° 1′56.43″N
119°28′52.97″W
38° 2′9.20″N
119°28′45.93″W
I found them scrolling though Google Earth and thought they might be something.
38 Shawn // Sep 14, 2007 at 7:08 am
Is this a dry lake bed or a silty lake? Look at this object. It’s roughly the size of a small aircraft.
40°12′40.05″N 120°23′54.05″W
39 Brad Eichmann // Sep 14, 2007 at 8:01 am
Shawn, that’s about 100 miles outside of the search area. You have to download a file of new satallite images like instructed above.
40 Shawn // Sep 14, 2007 at 8:56 am
Brad, I’m a commercial pilot and I fly planes just like his. The distance from the ranch is just over 100 miles. If I were looking for places to fly to, this dry lake bed (assuming its a dry lake bed) would be my first choice. I routinely fly 120+ miles and back on local flights. For Steve this would be a little joy ride by comparison to most of his flights. I have the new map and I see the offset you guys mentioned. If you center it over the ranch you can see the shift. I think there search area is too small. Steve is used to pushing his aircraft to the limit. Just a pilots perspective.
41 Shawn // Sep 14, 2007 at 9:10 am
It’s about 130 miles to the NW of the airport. That’s about an hour by air in the Super, maybe a little more or less depending on the headwind and cruise speed. The endurance of the Super is 3.4 to 4.4 hours depending on the cruising speed (typ. 128-147mph). This is why I think their search area is too small. He could have flown 200+ miles away from the airport easily. Of course this assumes he was on a mission to find a dry lake bed. If we just went up to do a little acro, he most likely would have stayed nearby. I would check near all the power lines too. They are easy to miss when flying and they are very high off the ground in that area. He could have hit one.
42 Shawn Brown // Sep 14, 2007 at 9:48 am
I just checked and Blackrock is 150 miles north of the airport. This is totally within the range of the Super. I believe that is where they do the land speed record attempts. The map is old in this area. In fact, if you zoom in you can see Burning Man taking place. That ended a few week ago or so. You can also see the remains of Burning Man from last year too. They should update the maps between the airport and Blackrock.
43 Shawn Brown // Sep 14, 2007 at 10:57 am
Ok so this may be a long shot, but “IF” Steve did fly up to Black Rock on the 3rd. Burning man was still going on. That was the last day. The Black Rock Airport was still open on the Playa. I wonder if anyone there ever noticed a Blue Super Decathlon fly in? That’s assuming the winds were not too high that day. It can be brutal on the Playa I hear. There’s another little airport just south of Black Rock, Empire (1A8). It’s another potential stopping point in that area.
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