http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8...icle=1&catnum=0CHICAGO (AP) - Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who risked his life seeking to set records in high-tech balloons, gliders and jets, was declared dead Friday, 5 months after he vanished while flying in an ordinary small plane. RIPbt

This one has always amazed (and baffled) me!The amount of resources, both sophisticated and mundane, to discover the wreckage were enormous. Although the aircraft he was flying would leave only a small footprint, the technology currently available would seem to be sufficient to detect some trace of it.I've read comments from some sources that seem to think that the crash occurred within a relatively short distance from the point of departure; good possibility I'd suspect.Well, in any case, this event is ripe for the conspiricy theory syndrome to develop...-George

I don't understand how a judge can do it this early, when the law normally requires 7 years before you can declare a missing person dead? What happens a year from now if some how he shows up alive and his estate was already distributed? I know it's unlikely, but if it did, it could create a really big mess!!

There's an interesting article in the Smithsonian Air & Space magazine about the search for Steve Fossett. Given a man of his importance going missing, a very great deal was done to try to find him. The terrain that he is supposed to be lost in makes it incredibly difficult for finding a downed aircraft, regardless of the technology one would use to find one. Despite that, searchers found five other wrecks that had gone previously undiscovered...http://www.airspacemag.com/issues/2008/feb...eve_fossett.phpJeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

>I don't understand how a judge can do it this early, when the>law normally requires 7 years before you can declare a missing>person dead? I do understand, you misinterpret the law. There is ample evidence that Steve Fossett is not just a "missing person" and he perished in an accident, the judge is here to use the law and look at the facts.Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

Steves widow asked the court for this since there were so many assets to handle.

Having done some Civil Air Patrol flying you would be surprised how difficult it is to find a plane wreck. It depends on how they went in (straight in and you would be looking for a hole-not a plane, in trees you would be looking for trees that look funny etc-the plane most likely would never be visible). We have had two go down in the last few years in Michigan that were never found-though a body from one of the missing planes washed up on Lake Michigan. I was talking to a Cap person the other day-the number of missing planes never found just in the US is quite substantial-I'd give a number but I can't remember the exact figure-but it was many, many. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

I have an old friend that discovered a downed aircraft on a hunting trip. The majority of the aircraft was in the trees still and had been there for almost ten years. We had a mystery disappearance in Oregon just a few months before Steve's and that aircraft has also not been found despite a very extensive search, they too found other lost crashes.