Experts doubtful of Fossett’s survival

RENO -- As the search for Steve Fossett dragged into its ninth day Tuesday, experts said they doubted the millionaire adventurer could have survived more than a week in the rugged desert since his plane vanished.

While the aviator could scratch water, food and shelter from the desolate Nevada landscape, experts said his first order of business would have been signaling rescuers.

"There's no news of him signaling for help, and that's a problem," said David McMullen of Berkeley, Calif., a leader of the hiking group Desert Survivors, whose members venture into some of the country's harshest terrain. "He's either so injured he can't signal, or he's perished."

Fossett's plane was equipped with an emergency beacon, and he was wearing a high-tech watch capable of generating a similar signal. Searchers have received no signal from either device and have not spotted a lower-tech distress signal such as a fire or massive X made of rocks or sticks.

Ground crews were trying to track the source of a faint signal from an emergency beacon Tuesday, but authorities do not think it has anything to do with Fossett's plane.

"It's not his. It is a canned voice," Lyon County Undersheriff Joe Sanford said.

Fossett, 63, a former commodities trader who was the first to circle the globe solo in a balloon, last was heard from Sept. 3 after taking off from a private airstrip about 80 miles southeast of Reno. Authorities think he was carrying one bottle of water.

Fossett is a survivalist who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Matterhorn and who lived through several failed attempts to circle the globe in a balloon.

Maj. Cynthia Ryan of the Nevada Civil Air Patrol said Tuesday she is still betting on his "sheer grit and determination."

"We still find people against all odds," said Ryan, who said she was not concerned by a lack of a signal.

"Maybe he's got a couple of broken arms and can't signal," she said.

But such injuries would worsen his chances of finding the scarce water sources in the 17,000-square-mile search area, about twice the size of New Jersey.

People can go only two or three days without water in the summer, experts said, and Fossett would be hard-pressed to find water in unfamiliar country, even if he were in good health.

"At this point, you'd be lucky to find him alive," said Lee Bergthold, director of the Palmdale, Calif.-based Center for Wilderness Studies and a former Marine Corps survival instructor. "No food, that's not a problem. No water, that's a problem. That's a harsh desert out there."

Shelter from the sun would be just as important as water to Fossett had he survived the crash, McMullen said.