While completing background research about adventurer Steve Fossett, I happened across a related story. This one takes place May 9, 1957 and is still the subject of speculation.
“Wife Refused to Let Hope Dwindle,” declared the front-page headline in the Reno Evening Gazette on July 3, 1957. The story of David Steeves dominated the upper half of the page.
“I don’t think a wife, deep down, ever really gives up hope,” Rita Steeves was quoted.
David Steeves was a U.S. Air Force lieutenant who was accused of giving a Lockheed T-33A trainer jet to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He had been ordered to fly the jet from Hamilton Air Force Base in California to Craig Air Force Base in Alabama.
Both Steeves and the jet disappeared, and he was declared dead after a search turned up nothing. Some 54-days later, he walked out of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, saying he had parachuted to safety after something blew up in the jet.
The parachute had torn upon opening, causing the 23-year-old to suffer a hard landing and severely twist his ankle. He remained in place, using what was left of his parachute to bundle up against the cold.
Steeves told authorities he hadn’t eaten for nearly two weeks and thought he was going to stave to death, when found an unused ranger’s cabin in Kings Canyon National Park. There he also discovered a tin of beans and ham, sugar and a packet of dried soup, which helped him survive.
Eventually, Steeves built a trap and was able to catch a deer. By the 13th day, he felt strong to try to reach civilization.
On July 1, after several attempts and failures, Steeves stumbled upon some hunters warming themselves by a campfire and told them who be was. And for a while, he was treated like a hero.
But when the Air Force couldn’t find any wreckage, Steeves was accused of giving the jet to Russia or shipping it piecemeal to Mexico. Even though no charges were brought against him, the rumor destroyed his military career.
Steeves spent the following years searching for his jet, renting planes and scouring the countryside. He, like so many others, never located a single thing from the downed T-33A.
Steeves, remained in the U.S. Air Force as a Reservist, flying and designing experimental airplanes. He was killed on October 16, 1965 during a demonstration flight of one of these new aircraft.
In 1977, some Boy Scouts from the Los Angeles area on a hiking trip in Dusy Basin in Kings Canyon National Park came across a cockpit cover. The serial number on it matched the missing T-33A jet that Steeves had piloted.
Where it was found, triangulates well with the U.S. Air Force’s 41st Air Rescue Squadron’s mission report of longitude 36 14 north, latitude 118 41 west. However the remainder of the craft has yet to be officially located.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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