Steve Fossett, the 63-year-old globe-circling millionaire adventurer and technology pioneer (airplanes and balloons) took off from Baron Hilton's 2,000-acre Flying M Ranch 30 miles south of Yerington in western Nevada on Labor Day (September 3) in a single-engine blue-and-white Citabria Super Decathlon airplane belonging to Hilton for a three-hour "jaunt" around the countryside.
It's believed that Fossett, who had plans to try and break the land-speed record (see QoD 9/27/07) in a jet-powered race car somewhere in northern Nevada next year, was scouting out dry lake beds south of Yerington in preparation for his record attempt.
He took off at nine in the morning. Peggy, his wife of 30 years, waited for him at the ranch; they had plans to fly out on their own plane at noon.
Steve Fossett flew south from the Flying M and hasn't been heard from since.
The Civil Air Patrol Nevada Wing, along with other government and a number of private aircraft, plus would-be rescuers using online global positioning, satellite coordinates, and mapping tech, searched more than 20,000 square miles around northern Nevada for weeks after his disappearance. (The Civil Air Patrol called off the search after the second week.)
The plane had an emergency locater transponder (ELT), but not a peep has been heard from the electronic location beacon. In addition, Fossett was known to wear a special wristwatch capable of signaling his location in an emergency, but again, no signal has been received.
Also, oddly enough, Fossett failed to file a flight plan, which left searchers looking for a tiny needle in a huge haystack.
It's especially ironic, since Fossett has survived crashes in planes and balloons all over the world. In 2002, on his sixth try, he became the first person to fly solo around the world in a hot-air balloon. A few of the first five attempts ended in near disasters, including a 29,000-foot plummet into the Coral Sea off Australia after a storm shredded his balloon. (He's credited with 115 world records or world firsts in aviation and four other sports.) Fossett was a highly skilled and experienced pilot, flying on a clear day in terrain he was familiar with. He was also a survival expert who, in his life, had walked, injured, up to 30 miles to safety after various mishaps.
Searchers found a reported seven other wrecked planes in the area, solving other mysteries, but not Fossett's. Such disappearances happen on occasion in the area, which consists of unpopulated rugged terrain of sagebrush and pine.
We've heard some speculation that Hilton's plane was in disrepair and that it crashed into Walker Lake, a fairly large lake in the area, though the ELT works under water.
We've also heard that Fossett actually chose to disappear, though no reasons have supported such a supposition.
And the usual government-conspiracy theories have surfaced, particularly one speculating that Fossett might have strayed into the restricted airspace in the military's top-secret Area 51 or Nellis Air Force Base and been shot down, followed by a major cover-up.
Thus, to date, what happened to Steve Fossett remains a mystery. It won't be the first enigma hereabouts. Nevada, which has been called "a vortex of the unexplained," is home to a number of puzzlements that have occurred over the years.
One thing's for sure, though: The longer Steve Fossett's fate remains unknown, the closer he'll be linked in the popular imagination to Amelia Earhart.
