Search Is On For Adventurer Steve Fossett

The United States aviation authority is now scouring the desert for any sign of the 63-year-old celebrity adventurer whose emergency locator beacon has not been activated to signal a crash. "Fossett didn't file a flight plan," Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, said yesterday.

"It's a lot harder to conduct search and rescue if you don't know where the pilot was flying."
Nevada's Civil Air Patrol is leading the effort, with as many as 13 search craft mobilized by yesterday afternoon to cover hundreds of square kilometres of rugged terrain and sagebrush, according to Major Cynthia Ryan. These included six Cessna 182 planes from the Civil Air Patrol, each with a three-person crew, plus helicopters from the Nevada National Guard, California Highway Patrol and Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nev.

"We're committing federal resources to this mission," Major Ryan told The New York Times yesterday.
"We'd do this for anyone." She added that Mr. Fossett took to the air in search of dry lakebeds where he could train for his next extreme exploit: topping the land-speed record.