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SAN FRANCISCO - Rescuers called off their active air search for Steve Fossett yesterday, but insisted they had not given up hope and would keep crews on standby to fly to sites where the US adventurer's airplane may have crashed.
Chuck Allen of the Nevada Department of Public Safety told Reuters that authorities continue to consider the hunt for Fossett a "search and rescue" mission, and that they are hopeful he is alive, but that the hunt would be scaled back.
In the most extensive search ever mounted in the western US state of Nevada, air crews have found no sign of Fossett, the first person to pilot a balloon solo around the world in 2002.
Fossett took off alone in a single-engine air plane on Sept. 3 from a private air strip in Nevada.
"Nobody is giving up on this man," Allen said. He added that authorities would announce later on Wednesday afternoon the number and type of aircraft that would be held in reserve to continue the search for Fossett.
"The search is going to continue. It's just going to be scaled back," he said.
Search crews have scoured 98 per cent of Nevada during more than 1300 hours of flight time seeking clues to what happened to Fossett, a millionaire financial trader and record-breaking pilot.
After becoming the first person to fly solo around the world by balloon, he became in 2005 the first person to fly an airplane solo and nonstop around the world.
He also has climbed more than 400 mountain peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, swam the English Channel, raced in the Le Mans auto race and competed in Alaska's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Fossett, born in California in 1944, holds 116 records in balloons, airplanes, sailboats, gliders and airships - which all rely upon the wind, hence the title of his autobiography, Chasing the Wind.
Fossett went missing during a flight to scout locations for a planned attempt to set a land-speed record.
- REUTERS
