How computer users can search for Steve Fossett from their desktops

Philippe Naughton and Tim Reid in Washington
Internet users around the globe have been asked to join what is being billed as the world’s largest missing person search, a frame-by-frame trawl through tens of thousands of satellite images for signs of the missing adventurer Steve Fossett.

But even if desktop rescuers do find photographic evidence of a crashed aircraft, there is no guarantee that it will be Fossett’s: the search for the adventurer has so far turned up eight unrelated crash sites.

Fossett, 63, disappeared last week after taking off in a single-engined aircraft from a ranch in Nevada. The holder of more than 115 world records involving speed, endurance and distance in aircraft, balloons and boats, he had been hoping to find a suitable site for a planned attempt on the world land speed record.

Since then, rescue officials have been searching an area covering more than 17,000 sq miles over Nevada and parts of California. It has emerged that more than 150 small aircraft have disappeared in Nevada in the past 50 years, never to be found.

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“We’re finding them left and right. Nevada is a graveyard,” said Kim Toulouse, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Wildlife, which has been helping with the hunt.

The online search is being organised using Mechanical Turk, a “human intelligence” tool created by Amazon. com, the online retailer. Mechanical Turk is named after a bogus chess-playing robot dating from the 18th century, whose creator had hidden a genuine chess master inside. The name refers to projects in which computers set the tasks for human beings to complete.

In this case, the mission is to work through satellite pictures newly taken for the Google Earth service. Those who sign up to help - already thought to number in the thousands - are asked to review individual frames and to look for foreign objects that resemble aircraft.

“Marked images will be sent to a team of specialists who will determine if they contain information on the whereabouts of Steve Fossett,” the website instructions read.

“Friends and family of Steve Fossett would like to thank you for helping them with this cause.”

In the latest false alarm in a search that has become increasingly grim, rescuers arranged a press briefing after sighting wreckage less than 50 miles from the private ranch where Fossett took off. Many believed that they had found Fossett’s plane. But a helicopter ground crew discovered that it was an old US Navy aircraft crash site.

Fossett’s wife, Peggy, has remained at the ranch from which her husband departed in what was scheduled to be a three-hour trip. It belongs to Barron Hilton, the hotel magnate. Joe Sanford, a local sheriff, said it was an “understatement” that the aviator’s family had been on an emotional “roller-coaster”. Major Cynthia Ryan, of the Civil Air Patrol in Nevada, said: “This search is big, it is frustrating and it is exhausting, physically and mentally.”

Fossett is an expert survivalist, but hopes of finding him alive are now fading fast. His Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon was fitted with a satellite rescue beacon, but no signal has been received.

Networked help

SETI@home, run by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, uses the processing power of idle home computers to analyse decades of data from radio telescopes in search of signals from other planets

Orbit@home reconstructs, simulates and analyses Near-Earth objects, large chunks of debris passing close to our planet. By doing so, it enables scientists to understand better the threat they pose

FightAIDS@home runs biomedical simulations on home computers to test potential methods for fighting the HIV virus and developing a cure for AIDS

Source: Berkeley University