In the News Hiker finds Fossett plane-crash site
Hiker finds Fossett plane-crash site
A little more than a year after Steve Fossett disappeared while flying over the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains, searchers finally found the crumpled wreckage of his light plane on a mountainside near Mammoth Lakes, Calif.
The single-engine Bellanca Super Decathalon had plowed into the mountain at an elevation of 9,700 feet, crushing the fuselage and throwing the engine hundreds of feet away. Two days later, a single bone fragment roughly 2.5 inches by 1 inch was found near the crash site and taken for analysis.
Aerial searchers spotted the wreck of the blue-and-white plane at sundown Oct. 1, 5/8 of a mile from where hiker Preston Morrow two days earlier had stumbled upon Fossett’s pilot’s license, two other identification cards and $1,005 in cash in bushes off a hiking trail, according to Madera County sheriff’s spokeswoman Erica Stuart. With snow moving into the area, further searching likely won’t resume until next year.
The 63-year-old Fossett, a multimillionaire Chicago commodities trader-turned- adventurer, set world records in boats, gliders and hot-air balloons. He disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off from hotelier William Barron Hilton’s Nevada resort, about 100 miles northeast of where the wreckage was found. A court declared Fossett legally dead Feb. 2.
Fossett chased sailing speed and distance records for 11 years, setting 23 between 1993 and 2004 — including two single-handed records — on the 60-foot trimaran Lakota, the 60-foot catamaran Stars & Stripes and the 125-foot (formerly 105-foot) maxicat PlayStation, aka Cheyenne.
His widow said through attorneys that she hoped to find Fossett’s remains. “I am grateful for all those involved in this effort,” she said.