When millionaire Steve Fossett’s plane disappeared over the Nevada mountain range in 2007, the adventurer had already been the target of two previous emergency rescue operations thousands of miles away.
And that raised a thorny question: Once the adventurer’s search is over, who should foot the bill?
In recent days, the massive search for a submersible vehicle lost during a descent through the Atlantic Ocean to explore the wreckage of the Titanic has refocused attention on that enigma. And with rescue teams and the public obsessed first with saving and then with mourning those on board, an awkward conversation has been struck up again.
“Five people have just lost their lives and starting to talk about insurance, all the rescue efforts and the cost may seem pretty heartless, but the point is, at the end of the day, there are costs,” says Arun Upneja, Dean from Boston University School of Hospitality Management and a tourism researcher.
“There are a lot of people who are going to say, ‘Why should society spend money on rescue efforts when (these people) are rich enough to be able to… engage in these risky activities?”
That question is gaining attention as well-heeled travelers in search of rare adventures spend big to scale peaks, sail across oceans and blast off into space.
The US Coast Guard on Friday refused to provide an estimate of the cost of its efforts to locate the Titan, the submersible that investigators say imploded not far from the world’s most famous shipwreck. The five people missing included a billionaire British businessman and a father and son from one of Pakistan’s most prominent families. The operator charged passengers $250,000 each to participate in the trip.
“We cannot attribute a monetary value to search and rescue cases, as the Coast Guard does not associate the cost with saving a life,” the agency stated.
Although the cost of the mission to the Coast Guard is likely to run into the millions of dollars, federal law generally prohibits it from collecting reimbursements related to any search-and-rescue services, said Stephen Koerting, a Maine-based US attorney specializing in law. maritime.
But that doesn’t resolve the broader question of whether wealthy travelers or businesses should be held accountable to the public and governments for exposing themselves to that risk.
“It’s one of the hardest questions to answer,” said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, referring to scrutiny of government-funded bailouts dating back to British billionaire Richard Branson’s hot-air balloon exploits in the 1990s. from 1990.
All five passengers of the Titan submersible died after the alleged implosion of the cabin.
“This should never be just about public spending, or maybe even primarily about public spending, but you can’t stop thinking about how the limited resources of rescuers can be used,” Sepp said.
The demand for those resources became apparent in 1998, when Fossett’s attempt to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon ended with a plunge into the ocean 500 miles from Australia. The Royal Australian Air Force sent a C-130 Hercules transport plane to find him. A French military plane launched a life raft with 15 people before it was picked up by a yacht.
Critics suggested that Fossett foot the bill. Fossett rejected the idea.
Later that same year, the US Coast Guard spent more than $130,000 rescuing Fossett and Branson after their hot air balloon plunged into the ocean off Hawaii. Branson said he would pay if the Coast Guard asked him to, but the agency would not.
Nine years later, after Fossett’s plane vanished over Nevada during what should have been a short flight, the state’s National Guard launched a months-long search that turned up the remains of several other crashes that happened earlier. decades, without finding the millionaire.
The State stated that the mission had cost taxpayers $685,998, with $200,000 covered by a private contribution. But when Governor Jim Gibbons’ administration announced that she would seek reimbursement for the remainder, Fossett’s widow objected, pointing out that she had spent a million dollars on her own private search.
“We believe that the search conducted by the State of Nevada is a government expense in furtherance of a government action,” wrote an attorney on behalf of the Fossett estate.
Risky adventurism is not exclusive to the wealthy.
The pandemic led to a surge in visits to places like national parks, increasing the popularity of rock climbing, hiking and other outdoor activities. Meanwhile, the spread of mobile phones and services has made many feel that if something goes wrong, help is just a phone call away.
In some places, there are laws known as “stupid motorist laws”, which force drivers to foot the bill for emergency response when they ignore barricades on submerged roads. Arizona has such a law, and Volusia County, Florida, where Daytona is located, enacted a similar law this week. The idea of a similar “stupid hiker law” is also often debated in Arizona, with so many unsuspecting people needing rescuing in sweltering triple-digit heat.
Most officials and volunteers leading the search oppose charging for help, says Butch Farabee, a former park ranger who has participated in hundreds of rescue operations in the Grand Canyon and other national parks and has written several books on the topic.
Searchers are concerned that if they charge to rescue people “they won’t ask for help as soon as they should and by the time they do it’s too late,” Farabee said.
The trade-off is that some may take this vital help for granted. Farabee recalls a call in the 1980s from a lawyer who underestimated the effort required to walk out of the Grand Canyon. The man called for a rescue helicopter, mentioning that he had an important meeting the next day. The forest ranger denied the request.
But that is not an option when the lives of the adventurers, some of them quite wealthy, are at extreme risk.
On Everest, climbing can cost tens of thousands of dollars in permits and expedition fees. A handful of people die or go missing each year while climbing the mountain, prompting an emergency response from local authorities.
Although the Nepalese government requires climbers to carry rescue insurance, the scope of rescue efforts can vary widely, with Upneja estimating that some can cost “several tens of thousands of dollars.”
Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a message seeking comment.
On the high seas, wealthy sailors seeking speed and distance records have also repeatedly needed rescue when their voyages went astray.
When the yacht of Tony Bullimore, a British millionaire circumnavigating the world, capsized 1,400 miles off the Australian coast in 1997, it seemed he was lost. Clinging to the inside of the hull, he ran out of fresh water and almost no air.
When a rescue ship arrived, he desperately swam to the surface.
I started looking back on my life and thought, ‘Well, I’ve had a good life, I’ve done most of the things I’ve wanted to do,'” Bullimore said afterwards. If I had to choose words to describe it, it would be a miracle, a true miracle. “.
Australian authorities, whose forces rescued a French navigator the same week, were more restrained in their assessment.
“We have an international legal obligation,” said Defense Minister Ian McLachlan. “We have a moral obligation, obviously, to go and rescue people, whether it’s in bushfires, cyclones or at sea.”
However, less was said about the Australian government’s request to restrict racing routes, in the hope of keeping sailors in areas where they might need fewer rescues.
