Steve Fossett's Plane Wreck Found

[Otto 83]

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - Thirteen months after millionaire thrill-seeker Steve Fossett mysteriously disappeared,

authorities finally know what happened to his small single-engine airplane: It slammed straight into a mountain on a cloudy day.

"It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly," said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for

Lyon County, Nev., who assisted in the search.The debris, hidden from easy view for more than a year, littered an area longer

than a football field and nearly as wide of a steep Sierra Nevada mountainside some 10,000 feet above sea level.

It appears to have been a tragic end for the intrepid ballonist, who was scouting locations for an attempt to

break the land speed record in a rocket-propelled car. Crews with cadaver dogs located a few personal effects

amid the mangled metal, along with a small bone fragment.

"I hope now to be able to bring to closure a very painful chapter in my life," his widow, Peggy, said in a statement.

"I prefer to think about Steve's life rather than his death and celebrate his many extraordinary accomplishments.

"Search teams planned to hike back out to the site Friday to scour the steep flank for more traces of the missing aviator.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the remains found Thursday were enough to perform DNA tests to determine if

they belonged to Fossett.

"We found human remains, but there's very little. Given the length of time the wreckage has been out there, it's not

surprising there's not very much," said NTSB acting Chairman Mark Rosenker. "I'm not going to elaborate on what it is."

Madera County Sheriff John Anderson described the finding by one of his lieutenants as an oblong piece of bone,

measuring 2 by 1 1/2 inches. Anderson also made a point of saying the bone fragment had not yet been confirmed as human.

"We don't know if it's human. It certainly could be," Anderson told reporters Thursday evening. "I refuse to speculate."He

said it would be sent to a California Department of Justice lab for testing. Asked about the sheriff's assessment of the physical

evidence, NTSB spokesman Terry Williams reaffirmed Rosenker's earlier statement.

"We stick by that. It's human remains," said Williams, who declined to say how the NTSB had arrived at that conclusion.

Meanwhile, California National Guard troops also were scheduled to head to the rugged spot in the Inyo National Forest

where searchers located the wreckage of the single-engine plane Fossett was flying when he disappeared more than a

year ago. They planned to airlift out the surviving portions of the plane in Blackhawk helicopters so they could be

reassembled and examined at a nearby hangar.

Most of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found several hundred feet away at an elevation of 9,700 feet,

authorities said. Fossett, the 63-year-old thrill-seeker, vanished after taking off alone from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel

magnate Barron Hilton.

His disappearance spurred a huge search that covered 20,000 square miles, cost millions of dollars and included

the use of infrared technology. For a while, many of Fossett's friends held out hope he survived, given his many close

scrapes with death over the years. A judge declared him legally dead in February.

The first breakthrough — in fact, the first trace of any kind — came earlier this week when a hiker stumbled across a

pilot's license and other ID cards belonging to Fossett a quarter-mile from where the plane was later spotted. Investigators

said animals might have dragged the IDs from the wreckage while picking over Fossett's remains.

The area, situated about 65 miles from the ranch, had been flown over 19 times by the California Civil Air Patrol during

the initial search, Anderson said. But it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane, given what was known about

sightings of Fossett's plane, his travel plans and the amount of fuel he had. Lt. Col. Ronald Butts, a pilot who coordinated the

Civil Air Patrol search effort, said gusty conditions along the mountains' upper elevations hampered the early efforts to search

by air, as did the small amount of debris that remained after the plane crashed. "Everything we could have done was done," Butts said.

As for what might have caused the wreck, Mono County, Calif., Undersheriff Ralph Obenberger said there were large storm

clouds over the peaks around Mammoth Lakes on the day of the crash.

Fossett made a fortune in the Chicago commodities market and gained worldwide fame for setting records

in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon.

[almaty 19]

news here in st louis, as it is being followed closely....i doubt they find him as coyotes and bigfoot probably carried his corpse away

[caybee 21]

I'm happy they have found at least some remains and the wreckage, for his wife and family's sake. I can't imagine what they've lived through for the last year.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Sad, but at least he was found.

[rclouse 0]

I've been hiking in that area but north of the Minarets. We tried to climb Mt. Ritter, got 2/3 the way up and a thunderstorm rolled in. Very beautiful country. Best photograph I ever took was on that trip.