The Associated Press is reporting that the NTSB is blaming downdrafts for the crash of adventurer Steve Fossett’s plane – specifically something called the "Washoe Zephyr” (Other bloggers have already picked up on the story including B.N. Sullivan of Air Crew Buzz who has included excerpts from the NTSB report while the CaliforniaFlightSchool.com has posted an interesting entry entitled Downdrafts, Not Stupidity Killed Fossett). In case you are not familiar with the “Washoe Zephyr,” it is a serious of strong wind gusts on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains 
that can come out of nowhere and swirl a small airplane around like a leaf, shear off its wings and drag it to the ground. In fact, anyone who has ever flown from Las Vegas to Reno on a passenger jet will know to keep their seatbelts as the ride is always bumpy. In fact, the AP article is even quoting a Mark Twain passage where the author states that “it blows flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet music, now and then blows a stagecoach over and spills the passengers.”
Hence, what likely happened was that Fossett was hit by a downdraft that was at least 400 feet per minute and this sent his plane (a single-engine, two-seater Bellanca 8KCAB-180 that is also known as the "Super Decathlon") into the side of a mountain. Winds were also estimated to be gusting at 29 to 35 miles per hour at the time of the accident and given that the Bellanca’s climb capability is estimated to be about 300 feet per minute, he had no way of pulling out of it.
Regardless of the exact causes though, the NTSB report does offer final closure to the story – after all, it did take almost a year for the wreckage to be found by hikers in the area.
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