Without a Trace

From our March 2008 issue: Last Labor Day, Steve Fossett—the investment wizard turned record-setting adventurer—took off in a plane from a remote Nevada airfield. He hasn't been seen since. Our reporter retraces the search for Fossett, while examining the theories behind his disappearance—and behind his frequent attempts to defy death

By Bryan Smith

(page 2 of 8)

Lost: Fossett disappeared into this Rhode Island-size landscape of corrugated mountain peaks and deep canyons.

Take a plane ride over this majestic, wind-thrashed landscape of corrugated mountain peaks and deep ravines, gorges, and gulches, and you quickly realize that there would be nothing lucky about going down here. Tucked into the back of a tiny Nevada Civil Air Patrol search plane, I saw firsthand. The high desert mountain ranges stretch over this Rhode Island–size region like a vast white-capped ocean.

"Look out there," Stan Campbell, a search pilot who spent weeks hunting for signs of Fossett, said to me through his headset mike, his voice a tinny buzz. "You can see what we were up against trying to find him."

RELATED MULTIMEDIA

Fossett's Last Flight (Interactive map)

Views from the Search Plane (Video)

Fossett vanished without a trace September 3rd somewhere amid these millions of acres, setting off one of the most extensive searches for an individual in U.S. history. Forty airplanes and helicopters—including 15 aircraft flown by private pilots operating out of the Flying M Ranch—scoured the area. Black Hawk helicopters equipped with infrared technology swooped in and crisscrossed the terrain at altitudes low enough to spot foraging coyotes. Sonar-equipped boats combed lakes in the area. Internet users around the world logged on to DigitalGlobe, the biggest supplier of satellite imagery in Google Earth, to see if they could spot some indication of wreckage. The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) pilots found eight previously undiscovered crash sites, some decades old, but no sign of Fossett. "He could have gone down in one of a thousand crevasses," Campbell explained during a two-hour flight over the region, a search on which he and his copilot, Terry Vanzant, allowed me to tag along. "He could have crashed into those aspens right there. Nobody knows."

The mystery recalled the unsolved disappearance of the pioneering pilot Amelia Earhart, who vanished en route from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean, in 1937. How could a man who still holds so many speed and distance flying records, who has crash-landed more times than some people have flown, utterly disappear on such a pedestrian trip in such ideal conditions? How does a man famous for his obsessive preparation and precautions travel over such a remote region with no cell phone, without his GPS-equipped Breitling watch, and wearing only a track suit, T-shirt, and tennis shoes? By law, the plane was required to have an emergency locator beacon, one that would automatically activate in a crash or could be manually turned on. But no distress signal has ever been detected.

Fossett's wife, Peggy, and friends and supporters of the aviator have added to the puzzle—unintentionally perhaps—by their reticence about the disappearance. Other than released statements, Peggy Fossett has not spoken publicly about her husband. Likewise, most of the couple's friends have refused to talk.

There's no doubt the search was exhaustive. Barron Hilton, at Peggy Fossett's behest, put so many planes in the air the day the aviator went missing that Campbell and other CAP pilots worried about collisions. Private helicopters were trucked in on 18-wheel flatbeds. C-130 military aircraft equipped with infrared detection equipment flew 24-hour sorties. At one point, some 40 CAP, military, and private planes were in the air, while dozens of searchers plunged on foot into the deep, brush-choked canyons. "We were pulling in crews from all over the place," recalls Lt. Col. Cynthia Ryan, a CAP spokeswoman. "We had a guy from New Mexico, a guy from Idaho, from Pennsylvania—all [CAP] members, all volunteers."

After weeks of exhaustive searching proved unsuccessful, however, the search was called off early last October. It remains suspended, though Nevada's CAP wing launches an occasional mission.

In November, Peggy Fossett filed documents in Cook County circuit court's probate division to have her husband declared legally dead. Doing so was the first step in taking control of his estate, estimated in court papers to be in the "eight figures in liquid assets, various entities and real estate." Peggy, who had been married to Steve for nearly 40 years, said in a written statement, "As anyone can imagine, this is a difficult day for our family. We will continue to grieve and heal, but after nearly three months we feel now that we must accept that Steve did not survive."

The Lyon County sheriff's office isn't ready to close the books, however. "We have not made, nor do we plan on making, any declaration that Mr. Fossett is deceased," Lyon County undersheriff Joe Sanford told me. "Unless there's a change of events that makes that evident, this agency still has an open case on a missing person and an open case on an overdue aircraft."

Peggy Fossett's lawyer, Michael LoVallo, insists that the lack of any final declaration from the sheriff's office should not affect a probate judge's decision. "Obviously, if there were a death certificate, that would be additional evidence and fairly conclusive," he says, but maintains that Fossett could be declared dead without one.

Photograph: Bryan Smith