# Aircraft gone missing? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 4, 2007, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479 "2007-10-04T06:54:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![A.R.Cane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479/1 "2007-10-04T06:54:20Z")
Inspired by the failure to locate any sign of Steve Fossett’s airplane, I’m wondering how unusual it is, especially in the U.S., for an aircraft to completely disappear. I could understand it happening over water, like Hale Boggs back in the 70’s, (supposedly) but in a case like Fossett you’d think there might at least be a fire, even it he did fly into a rocky cloud. Any other total disappearances, say since the begining of the millenium, over land in the lower 48? I’ve often driven the area of NV/CA around where he took off and, while there there are some pretty remote places there, it still seems odd that they couldn’t locate a crash site given all the resources and technology expended. As I recall the weather was pretty clear and, unless he ran out of fuel, which seems unlikely, you’d think there would at least been a fire. Any speculation, beyond the remoteness of the area. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479/2 "2007-10-04T10:19:22Z")
I thought the same thing after Fossett disappeared, especially after reading [this](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6987855.stm) BBC article; > [@](#): > > Charles’s plane crossed a tiny part of Nevada’s rugged wilderness that has swallowed more than 130 light aircraft in the past 50 years. > > The Florida-based Air Force Rescue Coordination Centre, which is helping coordinate the Fossett search, maintains a registry of known plane wreck sites in Nevada. > > There are currently 129 entries in that registry, but members of the Fossett search team say there are likely to be many more out there So, not an exact figure, but it seems there might be a few out there. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479/3 "2007-10-04T10:42:49Z")
Hous Majority Leader Hale Boggs disappeared without a trace, along with anothe Congressman & 2 other men, when their aircraft vanished in 1972. > **[Hale Boggs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hale_Boggs)** > > Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. (February 15, 1914 – disappeared October 16, 1972; declared dead December 29, 1972) was an American Democratic Party politician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the House majority leader and a member of the Warren Commission. > In 1972, while still majority leader, Boggs was on a fundraising drive in Alaska when the twin engine airplane he was travelling in (along with Alaska congressman Nick Begich and two others) disappea... No trace of men or aircraft has ever been found, despite one of the largest search efforts in history. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479/4 "2007-10-04T14:25:44Z")
A Lear Jet with two pilots disappeared on Christmas Eve 1996 in New Hampshire. A huge search turned up nothing and was abandoned. All kinds of crazy theories were put forward about what happened. Several years later, a forester stumbled upon the remains by accident deep in the woods in a place well within the original search area. Much of New Hampshire is very rural but I wouldn’t call it truly remote. Also, this was a Lear Jet with full instrumentation actively talking to Air Traffic Control to land. It wasn’t a small plane wandering out on its own. AIt could have been decades before anyone found it if a forester didn’t happen to go to the specific crash site. Other areas in the U.S. are a lot more remote than that so a lost plane can easily happen. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479/5 "2007-10-04T16:23:15Z")
[QUOTE=A.R. Cane] while there there are some pretty remote places there, it still seems odd that they couldn’t locate a crash site given all the resources and technology expended. [/QUOTE] I think the likely explanation is simply that the search area is thousands of square miles and sometimes a crash site is unrecognizable from more than a few hundred feet. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479/6 "2007-10-04T16:29:21Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] A Lear Jet with two pilots disappeared on Christmas Eve 1996 in New Hampshire. A huge search turned up nothing and was abandoned… this was a Lear Jet with full instrumentation actively talking to Air Traffic Control to land. [/QUOTE] This plane was operating under rules that basically ensured it would always be tracked by radar, and so was exempt from carrying an ELT. Unfortunately, in some areas (e.g. mountains of northern New England) radar coverage is quite spotty at low altitudes. The fact that the pilots badly mangled the approved procedures certainly contributed to the problem. As a result of this crash, ELT rules were extended to cover such operations. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-gone-missing/421479/7 "2007-10-04T18:27:58Z")
I recall reading about a USAF fighter pilot that crashed in the Sierra Nevada mountains back in the 1950s. Near Yosemite IIRC. Despite an extensive search, no trace was found. A month or so later, the pilot walks out of the wilderness. This was at the height of the cold war and it was thought that he had defected with the plane. FAst forward to the 1980s (again IIRC) a boy scout on a hike found a piece of the plane that had a serial number that could be identified.