Crews scale back search

MINDEN -- After two weeks of trying, rescue workers decided Monday to halt most of the search for millionaire aviator Steve Fossett.

"We feel if Mr. Fossett were able to be found, he would have been found by now," Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said. "We don't like to do this. It is against our nature to walk away from a search. But at some point you have diminishing returns."

Fossett, 63, has been missing since Sept. 3, when he flew away from Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, southeast of Yerington. Fossett reportedly was looking for dry lakes where he could try to break the land speed record, and his flight was supposed to be brief.

Aerial and ground searchers have not turned up any trace of Fossett in 14 days of looking but have found dozens of abandoned cars and pickups and six planes from crashes dating to the 1960s.

One other aircraft, which crashed in 1989, has not been found in crashes in Nevada since 1982, the year national and state flight organizations began to keep a registry of missing airplanes.

At times, 15 Civil Air Patrol planes were searching for Fossett over a 20,000-square-mile stretch of barren, mountainous western Nevada and into the pine forests of the Sierra Nevada in eastern California.

Much of the search area has been flown over six times, said Maj. Ed Locke of the Nevada National Guard.

"Unless new tips come in, what would you suggest we do?" Ryan asked reporters.

"You can only do so much with your eyeballs and assets," Ryan said. "Beyond that, it has to be left up to a greater power."

Lyon County Sheriff Allen Veil said 45 volunteers participated in ground searches over the weekend. But many hold other jobs and cannot search during the work week.

Because Fossett did not file a flight plan, he could have flown anywhere, and that has complicated attempts to find him, Ryan said.

She said two Civil Air Patrol aircraft will remain on standby at the search headquarters at the Minden-Tahoe Airport. They will fly if they receive tips with new information. But solid tips are down to a handful a day, Ryan said.

Four Nevada National Guard helicopters will continue to look for Fossett at least until Wednesday. A C-130 plane was taken off the search on Saturday.

Locke said search leaders will "re-evaluate assets" Wednesday morning and decide whether to stop the remaining search by helicopters.

He added the search has cost the state $617,000. Costs for the Civil Air Patrol have not yet been calculated. Civil Air Patrol costs are paid by the federal government.

Hilton has hired private helicopter pilots to search for Fossett, and that search is expected to continue. Veil said Fossett's family remains optimistic that he will be found.

Ryan said the way the authorities have handled the search for Fossett, who was rich and famous, is similar to the way a search would have been conducted for "Joe Shmoe."

"The difference has been all the media attention," she said. "And the resources of the Flying M Ranch."

A National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said Monday no decision has been made yet on whether to visit the old crash sites that searchers have discovered in their quest to find Fossett.

He said that when people discover what they think is an unreported crash site, it typically turns out later to have been checked previously by the NTSB and for some reason was not placed in crash records.

Often people decide that to remove wreckage from a remote site simply would be too expensive, he added.