Costly search was off target

CARSON CITY -- Nevada's state government spent $1.6 million last fall looking for missing multimillionaire pilot Steve Fossett in the wrong place.

Both the Lyon County Sheriff's Department and the Civil Air Patrol in Reno said Wednesday that the 20,000 square-mile area where they searched for Fossett was far from where a Mammoth Lakes, Calif., hiker on Tuesday found a pilot's license that belonged to the adventurer.

Fossett's remains were not found Wednesday, but Madera County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Erica Stuart said ground searchers were checking areas high in the Sierra Nevada. One of the search teams found what might be wreckage of the plane.

The search was to resume today.

Two members of the Lyon County Sheriff's Department and a state Division of Emergency Management employee have been sent to Madera County to see whether they can assist in the new search.

The hiker, Preston Morrow, found cash, other items and the pilot's license in a remote spot on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in Madera County.

It is this same area near the John Muir Wilderness where another hiker in 2005 found the frozen remains of a military airman whose aircraft crashed during World War II.

Lyon County Undersheriff Joe Sanford said he is pleased that Fossett's remains could soon be located.

But Sanford said the discovery was outside of the area where Nevada searchers, including the Nevada National Guard, looked for him.

Sanford later said he thought California Civil Air Patrol and searchers had previously looked in the Mammoth Lakes area.

Fossett, 63, took off on Sept. 3, 2007, from hotel magnate Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, south of Yerington, in what was supposed to be a short pleasure flight.

Fossett never resurfaced, and ultimately the quest to find him attracted hundreds of searchers.

The search effort developed worldwide interest when Google took new satellite photos of the area and placed them on its Google Earth Web site.

People on computers then scoured over the photos and called authorities to report what they thought were crashed planes.

A 10-member team headed by Simon Donato, focused in vain on remote, wooded areas near the Hilton ranch.

Sanford added he is relieved that Fossett's remains apparently will not be found in areas where they searched last fall, since that would have reflected negatively on their abilities.

"I was extremely concerned because of the enormous expenditures that someone would find him in areas we already had looked," Sanford said.

Earlier this year, Gov. Jim Gibbons tried unsuccessfully to secure $687,000 of the state's costs for the search from Fossett's widow, Peggy.

She refused to pay, contending she had spent $1 million herself on a private search, and maintaining that search and rescue operations are a state responsibility.

Hilton did contribute $200,000 to the state search effort.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.