Search on for missing US adventurer
Steve Fossett in 2002 became the first person to fly a balloon solo around the world.
The US navy had dispatched a helicopter to help in the search alongside the Civil Air Patrol.
| “[Fossett] never seems to stop looking for the next challenge, he harkens back to the golden age of flight…”
Ron Kaplan, executive director of the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio |
Stuart Radnofsky, spokesman for Fossett, said he had been visiting the Flying M Ranch owned by Barron Hilton, which he described as a popular sport flying centre.
Fossett, who earned his fortune as a financial trader, in 2002 became the first person to fly a balloon solo around the world and in 2005 achieved the first solo non-stop flight around the world in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer aircraft.
Last year Fossett flew solo in the GlobalFlyer to set the absolute non-stop distance record for any aircraft and set a new glider world altitude record with Einar Enevoldson, his co-pilot.
Fossett has also competed in endurance competitions, swam across the English Channel and set numerous world records in sailing.
Ron Kaplan, executive director of the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, which enshrined Fossett in May, said Fossett was not a daredevil. Rather, Fossett was a careful aviator who took advantage of advances in aviation technology to chase records.
Kaplan said: “He never seems to stop looking for the next challenge. He harkens back to the golden age of flight between the world wars when there was a multitude of records to be broken because of advances in technology.”