Las Vegas: After four weeks of what's being called the most
intensive search for a missing aircraft in United States history,
the Civil Air Patrol and the state of Nevada have halted the
effort to locate the millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett.
Mr. Fossett, 63, disappeared on Sept. 3 while taking what
was intended to be a short morning jaunt in a single-engine
airplane around the region around a posh ranch owned by William
Barron Hilton, the hotel magnate. When Mr. Fossett failed to
return to the ranch 90 miles southeast of Reno, a mammoth search
commenced.
"We're really disappointed that we couldn't find him," said
Cynthia S. Ryan, spokeswoman for the Nevada Wing of the Civil
Air Patrol, the volunteer Air Force auxiliary that led the search.
"We sure tried everything we could, pulled every trick out of
every hat. It didn't work. It wasn't for lack of talent, assets
and trying."
Indeed, the vast amount of resources, personnel and technology
employed in the effort to scour a 20,000-square-mile area that
takes in the rugged Sierra Nevada range was unprecedented. Volunteers
from the Civil Air Patrol's wings in eight states came to help
as did personnel from the National Guards of California and
Nevada and sheriff's deputies from six counties in Nevada and
California.
In addition, Amazon.com and Google teamed up to create a method
by which thousands of volunteers around the world could analyze
fresh satellite images of the search region in the hope that
they might spot something worth closer look.
The case drew such interest because Mr. Fossett is a famed
adventurer who set more than 110 records. In 2002, on his sixth
attempt, he became the first person to complete a solo, uninterrupted
flight around the world in a hot-air balloon. Last year he made
the longest nonstop flight in aviation history: 26,389 miles
in 76 hours, in a lightweight experimental plane.
Still, all was for naught.
"This is by far the most sophisticated search I've been involved
with," said Gary Derks, spokesman for the Nevada Division of
Emergency Management, who estimated the total cost of the mission
has exceeded $800,000. "I wish we could have found him. After
a month you get a little disheartened. I wish there's something
we could have done."
The search was technically first called off last week after
22 days, but was reignited over the weekend when Air Force computer
analysts thought they might know where Mr. Fossett is based
on a reinterpretation of radar data. That also failed to pan
out.
Mr. Derks noted that, while this search drew unusual attention
because Mr. Fossett is so widely known, it was only slightly
longer than a 21-day search for a plane carrying a father and
daughter from California who vanished after taking off from
the central Nevada town of Jackpot. The pair were also not found
by searchers, but their wreckage and bodies were found by hunters
about a month after the search was halted.
While the search has stopped, nobody involved would declare
Mr. Fossett to be presumed dead. Patrick Arbor, a close Fossett
friend and the former chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade,
agreed that "it looks pretty hopeless," but pointed to Mr. Fossett's
extraordinary survival skills. Mr. Fossett is the president
of the National Eagle Scouts Association, Mr. Arbor noted, so
"if anyone on this Earth could be out there crawling around
surviving, it would be Steve."
Mr. Derks noted that he's willing to hold on to a glimmer
of hope so long as nighttime temperatures don't plunge too low.
The low on Tuesday in Yerington, Nev., the town closest to the
ranch, was 31 degrees.
Mr. Arbor said the Fossett and Hilton families continued to
send private planes out in the region to search. Mr. Fossett's
wife, Peggy, remained at the Hiltons' Flying M Ranch for weeks
after he vanished but late last month retreated to the couple's
home in Beaver Valley, Colo., according to Mr. Arbor.
"It's very difficult," Mr. Arbor said. "We can't have a memorial
or tribute for him because we just don't know."
