Fossett search teams see what looks like wreckage

[October 02, 2008]  MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. (AP) -- After an aerial search turned up what appears to be wreckage of plane, ground crews are trying to determine whether it was the one piloted by adventurer Steve Fossett when he vanished more than a year ago.

Searchers had been combing a rugged part of eastern California on Wednesday after a hiker found identification documents belonging to Fossett earlier in the week. A pilot reported seeing possible wreckage around sunset, said Erica Stuart, spokeswoman for the Madera County Sheriff's Office.

Stuart would not reveal the exact location of the reported sighting. She said ground crews headed there Wednesday night and hoped to confirm Thursday whether there is actual wreckage and whether it belongs to Fossett.

Authorities warned that a snowstorm forecast for the eastern Sierra Nevada could hamper the search. They also cautioned that hundreds of planes have gone down in the region, so any wreckage found could be that of other aircraft.

Authorities said that if Fossett survived a crash, he may have hiked through rugged terrain to the site where the IDs were found.

"There must be some reason those things were found there," Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said at a news conference late Wednesday.

The hiker, Preston Morrow, said he found a Federal Aviation Administration identity card, a pilot's license, a third ID and $1,005 cash tangled in a bush off a trail just west of the town of Mammoth Lakes on Monday. He said he turned over the items to local police Wednesday after unsuccessful attempts to contact Fossett's family.

The information on the pilot's license -- including Fossett's name, address, date of birth and certificate number -- matched FAA records, spokesman Ian Gregor said.

Authorities authenticated two of the documents, including Fossett's pilot's license, Anderson said.

The IDs provide the first possible clue about Fossett's whereabouts since he disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.

The discovery of the millionaire adventurer's IDs gave his widow renewed hope.

"I am hopeful that this search will locate the crash site and my husband's remains," Peggy Fossett said in a statement Wednesday. "I am grateful to all of those involved in this effort."

Aviators had flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 90 miles south of the ranch, in the search for Fossett, but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane. The most intense searching was concentrated north of the town, given what searchers knew about sightings of Fossett's plane, his plans for when he had intended to return and the amount of fuel he had in the plane.

Morrow, 43, who works in a Mammoth Lakes sporting goods store, said he initially didn't know who Fossett was. It wasn't until he showed the items to co-workers Tuesday that one of them recognized Fossett's name.

"It was just weird to find that much money in the backcountry, and the IDs," he said. "My immediate thought was it was a hiker or backpacker's stuff, and a bear got to the stuff and took it away to look for food or whatever."

Morrow said he returned to the scene Tuesday to search further with his wife and three others. The group found a black Nautica pullover fleece, size XL, in the same area, but Morrow wasn't sure if the items were related.

Mammoth Lakes is at an elevation of more than 7,800 feet on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, where peaks top 13,000 feet.

The California Civil Air Patrol and private planes from Hilton's ranch previously had flown over the area, but it was "extremely rough country," said Joe Sanford, undersheriff in Lyon County, Nev., which was involved in the initial search.

Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.

He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

[Associated Press; By TRACIE CONE and JULIANA BARBASSA]

Juliana Barbassa reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Jason Dearen and Malia Wollan in San Francisco; Scott Sonner in Reno, Nev.; and Alicia Chang and Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.

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