When Steve Fossett disappeared on a flight in Nevada in September, tens of thousands of people, many of them AVweb readers, joined the search via Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk, a program that allows anyone with an internet connection to view satellite imagery of the search area. A few of those volunteers continued their efforts for months, and they developed ideas on how to make this type of search more effective. The result was InternetSAR.org, an organization that musters the efforts of volunteers all over the world to help find missing aircraft and other vehicles.
In addition to resuming the search for Fossett, the group has launched a search for Ron Boychuk, a Vancouver Island man whose Cessna 172 went missing in the rugged mountains near Revelstoke, British Columbia. Web site founder Ken Barbalace spoke with AVweb's Russ Niles about the organization and its goals.
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