When billionaire Steve Fossett’s plane went missing over the Nevada Mountains in 2007, the adventurer had already been the subject of two emergency rescue operations thousands of miles away.

And that raised a poignant question: Who should bear the costs after the exhaustive search for wealthy risk-takers is over?

In recent days, the massive search for a submarine lost during its North Atlantic descent to search for the wreckage of the Titanic has put this conundrum back in the spotlight. And rescue workers and the public are obsessed with saving the crew first and then mourning them, making it an uneasy conversation again.

“Five people have just lost their lives, and when you start talking about insurance, all the rescue efforts and their costs can seem very ruthless, but at the end of the day, they all come at a cost,” said Arun. Dean Upneja said. Graduated from the Boston University Hospitality Management Department and is a tourism researcher.

“Many people will say, ‘Why should society spend money on rescue operations when[these people are]wealthy enough… to engage in such dangerous activities?'”

This question is garnering attention as millionaire travelers seeking out-of-the-ordinary adventures climb massive mountains, cross oceans, and soar into space.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Friday declined to provide an estimate of the cost of efforts to locate the sunken Titan not far from the world’s most famous shipwreck. The five lost included a billionaire British businessman and a father and son from Pakistan’s most prominent family. The operator charged passengers $250,000 per passenger for the voyage.

“Monetary value cannot be ascribed to search and rescue incidents because the Coast Guard does not associate costs with saving lives,” the agency said.

The Coast Guard’s mission costs are likely to run into the millions of dollars, but federal law generally prohibits collecting reimbursements related to search and rescue services, says Maine U.S. Attorney Steven Coating said. maritime law.

But that does not solve the larger question of whether wealthy travelers and businesses should be held accountable to the public and governments for exposing them to such risks.

“This is one of the most difficult questions to answer,” said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, referring to British billionaire Richard Branson’s success in hot air ballooning in the 1990s. It noted that a government-funded rescue operation dating back was under scrutiny. .

“This should in no way be about government spending alone, or be the main one, but without thinking about how the limited resources of rescue workers can be used. I can’t stay,” Sepp said.

The demand for these resources was noted in 1998 when Fossett’s attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon ended in a crash 500 miles off the coast of Australia. The Royal Australian Air Force sent a Hercules C-130 transport to find him. A French military plane dropped a 15-passenger life raft on Fossett, who was picked up by a passing yacht.

Critics argued that Fossett should pay the bill. He rejected the idea.

At the end of the year, the U.S. Coast Guard spent more than $130,000 to rescue Fossett and Branson after a hot air balloon crashed into the waters off Hawaii. Branson said he would pay if the Coast Guard asked, but the Coast Guard did not.

Nine years later, after Fossett’s plane vanished over Nevada after a brief flight, the National Guard launched a months-long search, only to find wreckage from the decades-old crash. But the billionaire was never found.

The state said the mission cost taxpayers $685,998, $200,000 of which came from private donations. But when Gov. Jim Gibbons’ administration announced it would seek reimbursement for the remaining costs, Fossett’s widow complained of spending $1 million on her own private search.

“We believe the search conducted by the State of Nevada was a government expense in carrying out government action,” attorneys representing the Fossett heirs wrote in a statement.

Risky adventures aren’t just for the wealthy.

The pandemic has led to a surge in visitors to national parks and other places, boosting the popularity of mountaineering, hiking and other outdoor activities. On the other hand, with the ubiquity of mobile phones and services, many people feel that if they have a problem, they can get help with just a phone call.

In some areas, there are laws commonly referred to as “stupid driving practices” that force drivers to incur contingency bills if they ignore barricades on flooded roads. Arizona has such a law, and Volusia County, Florida, where Daytona is located, enacted a similar law this week. Similar “stupid hiker law” ideas are regularly debated in Arizona, where too many unprepared people need to be rescued in stifling triple-digit heat.

Butch Farraby, a former ranger who has participated in hundreds of rescue operations in the Grand Canyon and other national parks and has written several books on the subject, said most of the officials and volunteers conducting the search were rescuers. He said he was against charging fees.

Mr Farraby said searchers were concerned that if they charged to rescue people, they “didn’t call for help right away and by the time they called for help it would be too late.”

The price is that some may take that vital help for granted. Faraby recounts a call from a lawyer who underestimated the effort required to hike out of the Grand Canyon in the 1980s. The man said he had an important meeting the next day and requested a helicopter rescue. Ranger denied the request.

However, some adventurers are very wealthy, but that’s not an option when their lives are in extreme danger.

Everest can cost tens of thousands of dollars in permit fees and expedition fees climb.Several people die or go missing During our annual hike up the mountain, emergency response was called for by local authorities.

Nepal’s government requires climbers to have rescue insurance, but Upneja estimates that the scope of rescue operations can vary and some can cost “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

On the high seas, wealthy yachtsmen seeking speed and distance records repeatedly seek help when lost.

In 1997, British billionaire Tony Brimore’s round-the-world trip seemed to be over when his yacht capsized 1,400 miles off the Australian coast. As it clung to the inside of the hull, it ran out of fresh water and almost ran out of air.

He swam frantically to the surface when a rescue ship arrived.

“I was starting to look back on my life and was like, ‘Well, I’ve had a good life, I’ve done most of what I wanted to do,'” Brimore later said. If I were to describe it, it would be a miracle, an absolute miracle. ”

Australian authorities, whose troops rescued a French yachtsman the same week, made a more cautious assessment.

“We have an international legal obligation,” Defense Secretary Ian McLachlan said. “We clearly have a moral obligation to go and rescue people, whether it’s in a bushfire, a cyclone or at sea.”

However, little is said about the Australian government’s call to restrict yacht racing routes. This is in hopes of keeping the crew in areas where there is less need for rescue.

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Associated Press reporter David Sharp of Portland, Maine contributed to this article.