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October 3, 2008 — Rescue crews Thursday found the wreckage of the airplane that Steve Fossett disappeared in 13 months ago, just days after a hiker found some of the millionaire adventurer’s belongings.
While first media reports said there was no sign of his body, the Guardian reported Friday that a “very small” quantity of human remains were found at the site, but that it was enough to provide a DNA sample.
Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, did not say what investigators found, but said it was not surprising that little was retrieved as it had been more than a year since Fossett went missing.
FOX News reported that Fossett and the Bellanca flew straight into a mountainside. "The crash looked to be so severe that I doubt if someone would have walked away from it," Anderson said during a Thursday news conference. The engine was lying about 300 feet from the wings and the fuselage, which disintegrated on impact.
“It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly," agreed Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nevada, who assisted the search.
Hiker Preston Morrow found the belongings, including ID cards with Fossett’s name and $1,005 in cash, off a trail near the town of Mammoth Lakes earlier this week. His discovery prompted authorities to assemble a new search team to comb the area, and the plane was found about a quarter-mile away, the Times Online reported.
Fossett, who holds several world aviation records in balloons, jets, and gliders, took off on a pleasure flight from Barron Hilton’s Flying M Ranch on September 3, 2007, about 20 miles south of Yerington, Nev. When he failed to return, an unprecedented search effort ensued, led by the Civil Air Patrol, covering some 20,000 square miles. Smaller-scale searches were also made, the most recent in August 2008.
Following the discovery, Fossett's wife, Peggy, said in a statement: "I hope now to be able to bring to closure a very painful chapter in my life. I prefer to think about Steve's life rather than his death and celebrate his many extraordinary accomplishments."
Fossett was declared legally dead by a Cook County, Illinois judge in February 2008.
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The engine of Steve Fossett’s plane was lying about 300 feet from the wings and fuselage.
Photo: Sydney Morning Herald.
Image taken from a video shows Steve Fossett's pilot's license and several $100 bills that were found Monday.
(Discovery Channel/LMNO Prod/AP)
Wreckage from Steve Fossett's airplane on a California mountainside.
Photograph: EPA
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