The Hindu : International : Plane carrying aviation adventurer Steve Fossett missing

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Wednesday, Sep 05, 2007
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International

Plane carrying aviation adventurer Steve Fossett missing

RENO (Nevada): Teams searched rugged terrain on Tuesday for a plane carrying aviation adventurer Steve Fossett, a day after the plane vanished, federal officials said.

Fossett, the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon, took off in the single engine Bellanca at 8:45 a.m. (1545 GMT) Monday at a private airstrip on a ranch in western Nevada and did not return as scheduled. A friend reported him missing, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Maryland.

``The Civil Air Patrol is looking for him. One problem is he doesn't appear to have filed a flight plan,'' Gregor said.

The search for the millionaire entrepreneur was being coordinated by the Air Force's Rescue Coordination Center in Langley, Virginia, Gregor said.

``They are working on some leads, but they don't know where he is right now,'' Gregor said.

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 (31,265.85 kilometers) around the Southern Hemisphere. The record came after five previous attempts _ some of them spectacular and frightening failures.

Three years later, in March 2005, he became the first person to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling.

He and a co-pilot also claim to have set a world glider altitude record of 50,671 feet (15,445 meters) during a flight in August over the Andes Mountains.

Fossett, 63, of Beaver Creek, Colorado, was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July. He told a crowd gathered at the Dayton Convention Center in Ohio that he will continue flying.

Fossett said he planned to go to Argentina in November in an effort to break a glider record. -- AP

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