Search On For Adventurer Steve Fossett
Crews scouring an unforgiving landscape of rugged mountains, sagebrush-filled desert and steep ravines for famed aviator Steve Fossett were counting on help Wednesday from the lighter winds that were forecast for the search's second day.
High gusts and heavy turbulence hampered the aerial search for the millionaire adventurer on Tuesday, a day after his single-engine plane disappeared within a vast expanse of the Nevada wilderness.
Fossett, the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon, was reported missing Monday night. He took off in a single-engine plane that morning from an airstrip at hotel magnate Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, about 70 miles southeast of Reno.
An aerial search that included 14 aircraft conducted grid searches over 7,500 square miles - an area larger than Connecticut - but intended to concentrate on 600 square miles when the search resumed Wednesday morning.
"The mountain peaks around here can get really rugged. There are a lot of ravines that are hard to search ... a lot of nooks and crannies we have to look at," Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said.
She said the angle of the sun changes the view in valleys and ravines throughout the day.
It was not known what kind of survival gear, if any, Fossett might have had with him. He was planning just a short flight before returning to the private air strip at the Hilton ranch.
Fossett's close friend Sir Richard Branson, a British billionaire adventurer himself and chief of the massive Virgin commercial empire, expressed concern for the 63-year-old but said he was a survivor.
"If anybody's going to walk out of this situation it's going to be Steve," said Branson. "If he has managed to land the plane and is not too badly hurt, I'm absolutely certain we'll see him again. There's nobody better equipped in the world to survive a situation like this."
Branson said he had given Fossett a high-tech diving watch as a gift that contained an emergency homing beacon. He said the fact that Fossett had apparently not activated the beacon since his disappearance was "worrying".
Ryan would not speculate about how many days someone might survive in the terrain, but she and longtime associates of the 63-year-old adventurer said he had proven survival skills.
"He's a very savvy and methodical and determined pilot. I'd give him the highest odds," she said.
Branson, who has helped finance many of Fossett's adventures, said Fossett had been scouting dry lake beds as a possible location for a future attempt to break the world's land speed record of 766.6 mph.
Winds gusting up 40 mph on Tuesday kept the search planes from flying as low to the ground or as close to the 10,000-foot peaks as they'd like, Ryan said.
One Civil Air Patrol pilot said turbulence was so bad that his aircraft dropped 1,500 feet in about three seconds. The downdrafts and gusts also provide a very real danger: They can come out of nowhere to push aircraft into the granite mountainsides if pilots aren't careful.
"It's provided a real bouncy ride for our searchers and that makes it really difficult to look at what's on the ground," Ryan said.
Forecasters said the winds would drop to about 10 mph on Wednesday.
Searchers have had little to go on because Fossett apparently did not file a flight plan, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.
The Decathlon is used primarily for aerobatics and it is built to withstand the stresses and g-forces encountered during tight turns and maneuvers, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes. While Fossett is obviously a fan of experimental aircraft, he is not known to be an aficionado of aerobatics.
Nevada National Guard planes and helicopters in the rescue effort are equipped with infrared and other high-tech vision equipment, said Col. Craig Wroblewski, the Guard's director of operations.
With infrared cameras, darkness can make it easier for search and rescue teams to spot a downed pilot - if still alive - because body heat can make a figure appear to glow against a dark terrain.
The aircraft worked into the night Tuesday, but there was no sign of the pilot or his plane.
"We just want to find him alive," Wroblewski said.
The search area stretches in three directions from Yerington, which is 35 miles southeast of Carson City and is separated from the state capital by an impassable mountain range. Searchers are not looking north of Yerington because Fossett indicated he was headed south and took off in that direction.
In 2002, Fossett became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon. In two weeks, his balloon flew 19,428.6 miles around the Southern Hemisphere. In March 2005, he became the first person to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling.
"Steve is a tough old boot. I suspect he is waiting by his plane right now for someone to pick him up," Branson said.
A telephone message left for a Peggy Fossett in Beaver Creek, Colo., where Steve Fossett lives, was not immediately returned. Ryan said Fossett's wife was at the Flying M Ranch on Tuesday.