Hunt resumes for Steve Fossett

HAWTHORNE -- A year after the Labor Day 2007 disappearance of adventurer Steve Fossett, a team of friends and admirers is searching for some sign of him or his small plane in mountains just west of this west-central Nevada town.

The 28 searchers, headed by explorers Robert Hyman, Lew Toulmin and Bob Atwater, are hiking into steep tree- and brush-choked canyons and gulches on the west slope of the Wassuk Range, dominated by 11,239-foot Mount Grant.

They're relying on new information that alters earlier reports on Fossett's likely path in the plane borrowed from friend and hotel magnate Barron Hilton for what was to be a short flight.

"This is the right thing to do," Hyman said at the team's camp about 20 miles west of Hawthorne. "Explorers don't leave fellow explorers lost. ... We want to find out what happened to our friend and colleague, no more and no less."

The main search area, only 10 to 15 miles from Hilton's Flying M Ranch, was flown over repeatedly last fall. A ground search also was made. But Hyman said there's a lot of land that didn't get scrutiny.

"While I feel he's under our nose here, he's in an area that's extremely hard to get to. It's the vertical terrain, it's the dark terrain, and it's the trees, the vegetation," he said, adding, "You have to look for the perfect hiding spot, and not just scour the open terrain."

Fossett, 63, was declared legally dead in February. His widow, Peggy Fossett, issued a statement supporting the latest effort, one of three private, self-funded searches this year. She spent $1 million on last year's search efforts. That's in addition to more than $1.6 million in Nevada agency costs.

Hyman's method of sifting through data obtained by previous searches, using a NASA computer program that helps to visualize the land under a plane's route, and then treking over the rugged landscape drew praise from local authorities, whose investigation into Fossett's disappearance remains open.

"If that aircraft didn't go straight down and kind of angled in under a stand of pine trees, it's going to take someone physically walking upon that scene to find it," said Lyon County Undersheriff Joe Sanford.

Hyman said research that he and Toulmin have conducted since late last year turned up accounts of wrecks of similar aluminum-and-fabric planes no bigger than "a window-unit air conditioner or the size of a shopping cart or a washing machines. It could just be scattered debris."

They are hopeful about their efforts, which began Aug. 23 and will continue until Sept. 10, because they were able to narrow their search thanks to new information from a local pilot who was flying over the area Sept. 3, 2007, the day Fossett vanished.

Toulmin said that pilot confirmed his flight path appeared to match a radar path previously believed to have been Fossett's. The route initially prompted speculation that Fossett had flown farther east, possibly circling around Mount Grant. But with the new information, Hyman said, his team was able to focus on a smaller area to the west.

The latest hunt for Fossett follows a weeklong search by a team headed by Canadian geologist and adventure racer Simon Donato. Another search is being conducted by Mike Larson and Kelly Stephenson of Carson City. They have been riding ATVs and hiking southwest of Hawthorne for several months on days off from work.