Search for Steve Fossett Suspended. Again.

Filed in archive Aviation News on October 3, 2007

Yesterday, searchers announced they were shifting focus for missing aviator Steve Fossett from the air to the ground. However, today, according to a Yahoo! news article, the search has been suspended again. But, searchers are optimistic that someone either hiking or hunting in the area will locate the plane piloted by Fossett. Officials are calling the search for Fossett one of the largest efforts to locate a plane in modern history.

"We've exhausted all our leads at this time," Amy Courter, acting national commander of the Civil Air Patrol, said in a phone interview. "We didn't find anything. We don't have any conclusive information to follow - or to say there was a crash and he didn't survive."

Courter said that while the search has been officially suspended, it will be revived if new, viable tips come in. The search, effectively suspended by the Nevada Civil Air Patrol and the Nevada National Guard two weeks ago, had been renewed after Air Force experts thought they detected Fossett's flight path from radar and satellite images.

In all, the search encompassed a 20,000 square-mile area, involving Civil Air Patrol pilots from Nevada and seven other states, the Nevada National Guard, the Air Force Rescue and Coordination Center, the state Department of Public Safety and ground crews organized by local authorities.

Experts in radar analysis from the Federal Aviation Administration, Air Force, Navy, National Transportation Safety Board and the Civil Air Patrol also were involved, using high-tech methods to try to determine Fossett's flight path.