Human Remains Found Amid Fossett Wreck

Federal investigators say they have found body parts amid the wreckage of a missing adventurer's airplane in the in California's rugged Sierra Nevada just over a year after the he vanished on a solo flight. The craft appears to have hit the mountainside head-on, authorities said Thursday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said that searchers found enough at the crash site of Steve Fossett's plane to provide coroners with DNA.

National Transportation Safety Board acting Chairman Mark Rosenker won't say exactly what searchers found. But he says it was not surprising how little they uncovered, considering how long it had been since the crash.

Most of the plane's fuselage disintegrated on impact, and the engine was found several hundred feet away at an elevation of 9,700 feet, authorities said.

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

Crews conducting an aerial search late Wednesday 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 around 11 p.m. that the tail number found matched Fossett's single-engine Bellanca plane, he said.

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.

Fossett, 63, disappeared on Sept. 3, 2007, 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 that covered 20,000 square miles.

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

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

"I remember the day he crashed, there were large thunderheads 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 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 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.

A judge declared Fossett, 63 when he disappeared, legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.

Sir Richard Branson, one of Fossett's friends, told CBS' The Early Show that he was heartened by the latest developments.

"The good news is that I hope this will put a rest to the stories that have been going around once and for all and give everybody who was close to Steve a chance to pay the right tributes to an absolutely great and extraordinary man," Branson said.

In a statement, Fossett's widow offered thanks to Morrow and searchers on the ground and said she was anxious to learn from investigators the cause and circumstances of the crash.

Peggy Fossett said the discovery of the plane's wreckage may bring her some relief after enduring more than a year of uncertainty about her husband's fate.

"I hope now to be able to bring to closure a very painful chapter in my life," she said. "I prefer to think about Steve's life rather than his death and celebrate his many extraordinary accomplishments."

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, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.