Remains Are Found at Fossett Crash Site 13 Months After!!!!!!!

LAKES, Calif. — A day after discovering the wreckage of the plane flown by the millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett when he disappeared 13 months ago, investigators said Thursday that they had found remains at the crash site, a rugged and lonely mountainside in the Sierra Nevada of east-central California.

Mark V. Rosenker, the acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, confirmed the finding, saying that while the remains were “very little,” he believed that Mr. Fossett’s identity could be confirmed genetically.

“I believe the coroner will be able to do some work,” Mr. Rosenker said.



Sheriff John Anderson of Madera County said late Thursday that the
remains were a small bone fragment that would be sent to the state’s
Justice Department for forensic analysis.

Mr. Fossett’s aircraft was discovered Wednesday in a remote area of Inyo National Forest, about 120 miles south of the Nevada ranch where he departed on Sept. 3, 2007.
Mr. Fossett, a renowned aviator, had said he was going on a brief
flight but never returned, and the transponder on his aircraft did not
send any location signals. At his wife’s request, Mr. Fossett, 63, was
declared legally dead in February by a judge in Chicago.

Mr. Rosenker said parts of the transponder had been found, along
with other pieces of Mr. Fossett’s plane, in a debris field some 150
feet wide and 400 feet long. Initial indications are that the plane hit
a mountain, at an altitude of about 10,100 feet, and then burst into
flame, investigators said. There was no sign the plane had been on fire
before the crash, Mr. Rosenker said, but the plane’s engine was found
300 feet from the fuselage, which indicated an intense impact.



Mr. Fossett held numerous world records. He was the first person
to circumnavigate the world solo in a hot-air balloon and the first to
fly a plane solo around the globe without refueling.

In a statement, Mr. Fossett’s wife, Peggy V. Fossett, thanked the searchers and the hiker who found his belongings.

“The uncertainty surrounding my husband’s death over this past year
has created a very difficult situation for me,” Mrs. Fossett said. “I
hope now to be able to bring to closure a very painful chapter in my
life.”