7:22 a.m.: The wreckage of adventurer Steve Fossett’s plane has been found in the Mammoth Lakes area.
Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said this morning that no remains of a body were discovered near the wreckage. Fifty ground searchers and five K-9 teams are combing the area this morning, he said.
The wreckage was found about a quarter of a mile from where Fossett’s pilot’s license was found by a hiker Monday.
Fossett vanished on a solo flight more than a year ago.
His story was included in The Bee's special series, "Lost Flights: The Sierra's deadly legacy."
Hiker finds Steve Fossett's pilot license
MAMMOTH LAKES -- A hiker in a rugged part of the Sierra about 75 miles northeast of Fresno found a pilot's license and other items that appear to belong to Steve Fossett, the adventurer who vanished on a solo flight more than a year ago, authorities said Wednesday.
Later in the day, one of the flight crews dispatched to search the area sighted what could be the wreckage of a plane, said Madera County sheriff's spokeswoman Erica Stuart.
The Sheriff's Department sent in search and rescue teams to investigate and Sheriff John Anderson planned a press conference early today at Mammoth Lakes Airport to report any new information.
The information on the pilot license -- including Fossett's name, address, date of birth and certificate number -- was sent in a photograph to the Federal Aviation Administration, and all matched the agency's records, spokesman Ian Gregor said.
"We're trying to determine the authenticity of the document," Gregor said.
The hiker, Preston Morrow, said he found an FAA identity card, a pilot's license, a third ID and $1,005 in cash tangled in a bush off a trail just west of the town of Mammoth Lakes on Monday. He said he turned the items over to local police Wednesday after unsuccessful attempts to contact Fossett's family.
Mammoth Lakes police investigator Crystal Schafer confirmed that the department had the items.
Morrow said he found no sign of a plane or any human remains.
Fossett, whose exploits included circumnavigating the globe in a balloon, disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.
Fossett's widow, Peggy, said in a statement Wednesday that she was aware of Morrow's discovery and that authorities were going to the site.
"I am hopeful that this search will locate the crash site and my husband's remains," she said. "I am grateful to all of those involved in this effort."
Aviators had flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 90 miles south of the ranch, in the search for Fossett, but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane. The most intense searching was concentrated to the north of the town, given what searchers knew about sightings of Fossett's plane, his plans for when he had intended to return and the amount of fuel he had in the plane.
G. Pat Macha, author and avid searcher of plane wrecks, said the discovery of Fossett's identification near Mammoth Lakes confirms his theory that the crash was in the Sierra. He said an eyewitness saw Fossett's plane over Highway 395 in the Owens Valley near the Sierra.
He predicted the wreck would be found in the next 24 to 48 hours.
"I think they'll find it," he said. "I think they'll remove the plane and fully investigate it because this is such a high-profile case."
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