Steve Fossett declared legally dead / Wreckage Found

A Chicago judge has declared US millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett legally dead, five months after his aircraft disappeared over the Nevada desert.

Fossett was a record-setting balloonist, sailor and pilot who completed nonstop flights around the world.

He vanished in September after taking off in a light aircraft, and a long search produced no trace of him.

A judge heard testimony today from Fossett's wife, Peggy, and a family friend and from a search and rescue expert before deciding there was sufficient evidence to declare him dead.

Fossett earned millions of dollars trading futures and options on Chicago exchanges.

Lawyers representing his estate had filed a petition to have him declared legally dead so his assets could be distributed according to his will.

Update: 03/10/08:

Searchers have found the wreckage of missing adventurer Steve Fossett's plane in California's rugged Sierra Nevada mountains.

The discovery comes just over a year after the multi-millionaire vanished on a solo flight, and the craft appears to have hit the mountainside head-on, authorities said today.

Most of the plane's fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found about 60 metres away at an elevation of 2,956 metres, authorities said.

"It was a hard-impact crash, and he would've died instantly," said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nevada, who assisted the search.

Crews conducting an aerial search late yesterday spotted what turned out to be the wreckage in the Inyo National Forest near the town of Mammoth Lakes, Sheriff John Anderson said.

They confirmed that the tail number found matched Fossett's single-engine Bellanca plane, he said.

Fossett, 63, disappeared on September 3 last year after taking off in a plane he 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 which spanned 51,800 square kilometres.

Anderson said no human remains were found in the wreckage.

"It's quite often if you don't find remains within a few days, because of animals, you'll find nothing at all," Anderson said.

Teams led by the sheriff's department would continue the search for remains today, while the National Transportation Safety Board was en route to probe the cause of the crash, he said.

Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the NTSB, said the agency has reviewed photographs of the site and after a preliminary look.

"It appears to be consistent with a non-survivable accident."

He also said it was "indicative of a high-impact crash".

The NTSB would bring in a private contractor to help with recovery of the airplane, Rosenker said.

"It will take weeks, perhaps months, to get a better understanding of what happened," he said.

Searchers began combing the rugged terrain on yesterday, two days after a hiker found Fossett's identification. The wreckage was found about 400 metres from where hiker Preston Morrow made his discovery on Monday.

The IDs provided the first possible clue about Fossett's whereabouts since he vanished.

"I remember the day he crashed, there were large thunder heads over the peaks around us," Mono County Undersheriff Ralph Obenberger said, gesturing to the mountains flanking Mammoth Lakes.

Aviators had previously flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 144km south of the ranch, in the search of Fossett but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane.

Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats.

In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.

He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.