The discovery of adventurer Steve Fossett’s wrecked plane and personal items in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains may have put an end to the saga of the missing millionaire aviator, who disappeared on September 3, 2007, after taking off on a pleasure flight.

Fossett took off in a plane from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton, and disappeared over the California desert.

Search teams fanned out for months, but to no avail.

The 63-year-old adventurer seemed destined to be lumped into the category of famous lost aviators such as Amelia Earhart—until Wednesday, when there was a break in the case.

A hiker stumbled upon some of Fossett’s personal items, including his pilot’s license, in a remote cliffside area on Monday. By early Thursday, investigators had located the wreckage of Fossett’s plane not far from the town of Mammoth Lakes, at an elevation of 9,700 feet.

The plane appeared to have slammed into the side of a mountain and disintegrated in impact. By late Thursday some human remains were found at the site, which virtually confirmed that Fossett had died in the crash.

The spot where the wreckage was found on Thursday had been searched in September 2007, but it was likely not spotted at the time because the rugged terrain makes it difficult to spot scattered wreckage from a high altitude. One emergency services official described the search as trying to find “a needle in a haystack—and you have to find the haystack first.”

Searchers had difficulty knowing where to search because Fossett did not file a flight plan, and the potential crash area amounted to 24,000 square miles. Fossett’s wife had him declared legally dead in February 2007, after thousands of volunteers and hundreds of officials finally gave up the search. Though authorities said that after so many months it was highly unlikely that Fossett could have survived a crash or even a landing in a remote area, some speculated that he had faked his own death and was off living the good life in some other country.

Fossett made his fortune in the financial services industry, but was known for the many records he set in air, sea and land-based travel. A friend of fellow adventurer and entrepreneur Richard Branson, in 2002 Fossett became the first person to circle the globe solo in a balloon, and in 2005 was the first to fly a plane alone around the world without refueling. He also set world records in round-the-world sailing and cross-country skiing.

Related Links: Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, CNN

By Karen Elowitt for PeterGreenberg.com.

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