According to a Civil Air Patrol report I found on the Web, 29 percent of people involved in a crash will survive. If Steve Fossett crashed there is a 60 percent chance he would have been injured. If so, there is only a 6 percent chance he survived past the first 48 hours. If Fossett was uninjured, his chances were 50-50 in the first 72 hours. After that his chances diminish rapidly. The average time to find someone who hasn't filed a flight plan is 62.6 hours. An average emergency locator transmitter requires a force of 5-9 times the force of gravity to go off. Most have a switch in the cockpit that can allow them to be set off manually. An ELT gives off a radio signal, which requires someone to be in the line of sight with the transmitter, not all that likely given Nevada's and eastern California's terrain. The visibility of a crash site in a wooded area is about half a mile. All this came from the Lebanon, N.H. Web site at www.lebanoncap.org and none of it bodes very well for Mr. Fossett on day 12.
The wind is expected to die down a bit today and the National Weather Service and the red flag has been struck without any apparent damage. The high today will be a cool 78 degrees with winds running 5-15 mph with gusts of about 25 mph. The winds will be a tad slower over the weekend, with the gusts just hitting 20 mph. We may actually see some precipitation about the middle of next week. Wind gusts today hit 36 mph today in Fish Springs at about 3:30 p.m. and 34 mph in Bridgeport at 2:04 p.m.
It'll be hazy this morning, but the smoke won't have much to do with it. With the wind from Thursday, whatever was here will be pretty much cleared out or headed east in a hurry. Blame the haze on the particulate matter being raised into the air. Someone I respect told me that there was a tornado in the Valley on Tuesday. He said the wind was big and swirly and running about 70 mph. I don't know about a tornado, but I've seen some hellacious winds in my 45 years in Nevada.
