Oct 3, 2008, 1:21 GMT
San Francisco - The enigma of the disappearance of adventurer Steve Fossett appeared to be resolved Thursday as searchers positively identified the wreckage of his plane and found human remains strewn among the debris.
'We found human remains, but there's very little. Given the length of time the wreckage has been out there, it's not surprising there's not very much,' said National Transportation Safety Board acting Chairman Mark Rosenker. 'I'm not going to elaborate on what it is.'
Searchers discovered the wreckage late Wednesday evening in a rugged wooded area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains after fanning out in a 15-kilometre radius from where hikers discovered ID cards, clothes and some 1,000 dollars in cash that appeared to belong to Fossett, authorities said.
Search teams matched the wreckage Thursday with the plane that Fossett took off in before disappearing over the Sierra Nevada mountains last September, Madera County, California Sheriff John Anderson said in a news conference.
The plane was badly damaged on impact with wreckage strewn over a wide area and the engine lying over 100 metres away from the disintegrated fuselage.
Search crews with cadaver dogs had searched the area for signs of Fossett's body. But rescuers dismissed speculation that he could possibly have survived the crash.
'It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly,' said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nevada, who assisted in the search.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles, confirmed that the copy of a pilot's licence he had received matched Fossett's details.
'The certificate number and date of issue on the document in the photo matches the information we have for Mr Fossett in our database,' he said.
Other information, including Fossett's date of birth and his address, also matched, he said.
The items were found by ski-shop owner Preston Morrow near the remote recreation town of Mammoth Lakes close to the California- Nevada border about 500 kilometres north of Los Angeles. He handed them over to the police after an approach to the Fossett family was rebuffed.
The new information was enough to reconvene a search that was halted over six months ago when air and ground search failed to discover any trace of Fossett, 63, or the light plane that he was flying when he disappeared in September 2007.
The previous searches had not concentrated on the area around Mammoth Lakes.
Fossett's widow, Peggy, said she hoped the new discovery would help bring closure to her husband's disappearance.
'I am aware of the search underway for my husband, Steve Fossett, in the Mammoth Lakes area of Madera and Mono counties, California, following the discovery by a hiker of personal items that appear to belong to my husband,' she said in the statement.
'I am hopeful that this search will locate the crash site and my husband's remains. I am grateful to all of those involved in this effort.'
But for others the discovery was sure to fuel conspiracy theories that Fossett had staged the accident to fake his death and disappear because of failed business dealings.
Fossett disappeared as he was apparently trying to find a site to attempt an assault on the world land speed record.
A billionaire financial trader, Fossett set 116 records in sailboats, powered aircraft, balloons, airships and gliders.
He also swam the English Channel, drove in the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race, competed in Hawaii's Ironman Triathlon, sailed solo across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, climbed Argentina's 23,000-foot Aconcagua peak and competed in Alaska's Iditarod Trail sled dog race.
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