Some of you have asked questions about specific crashes and we're tracking that down as best we can.
For those of you worried about the two Marks, they seem to have recovered from their hiking ordeal and those scary pikas. Mark G. is busy keeping Starbucks in business, one latte at a time.
Now, for some of those questions (and comments) ...
George Stillman wondered if we knew the type of shoes that Steve Fossett was wearing when he vanished last year. Seems a friend of George's found a wing-tip brogue shoe in the Ansel Adams Wilderness area and was curious about any possible connection to Fossett's footwear.
From what I could find, reports are that Fossett was casually dressed in T-shirt, sweatpants and tennis shoes when he took off from a small air strip in Nevada, supposedly headed for Bishop on the east side of the Sierra. Sounds like it's not his shoe.
We've gotten a few calls and emails about another legendary crash dubbed the "Gamblers Special" that killed 35 people in 1969.
One came from Pat Dalbec, whose parents, Patrick and Carol Lee, died in the crash at Mount Whitney, elevation 14,497 feet. Dalbec, 40, who is a Fresno police officer, said he was a baby when the accident happened. He said his parents had won the trip through The Newlywed Game, a television game show of the era. He said they were in their 20s.
According to Don Jordanauthor of "Aircraft Wrecks in the Mountains and Deserts of California," the Douglas DC-3 was chartered to deliver gamblers to Nevada casinos. It was a common practice back then.
It flew out of Burbank. While returning from Nevada on Feb. 18, 1969, the plane crashed after encountering snow, sleet and strong winds, according to a federal accident report.
Dalbec said it took six or seven months to locate the wreck because of all the snow that year. The winter of 1968-1969 was one of the wettest on record in California. The wettest month on record in Fresno was January 1969.
That's true. It was August 1969 before the wreckage was located and bodies were removed.
Jordan said the site is rarely visited because it's such a tough trip up the mountain.
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