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Steve Fossett dead: Official

Court rules on disappeared adventurer

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A Chicago court last Friday declared Steve Fossett officially dead - five months after he and his aircraft went missing in Nevada.

The 63-year-old adventurer disappeared on 3 September last year after taking off from Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, roughly 70 miles southeast of Reno, in his Bellanca Citabria Super Decathalon.

An exhaustive search failed to locate the presumed wreckage of the aircraft, and in November his wife Peggy Fossett asked Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago to declare him dead.

Judge Jeffrey Malak duly said in his ruling: "I believe the evidence is more than sufficient."

Peggy Fossett had previously denied rumours that her husband has faked his own demise. She said last year: "None of Steve's wealth was transferred out or withdrawn in any manner that would suggest a planned disappearance. Steve has not accessed any of his assets since his disappearance. Steve had no debt and no life insurance."

According to the Chicago Tribune, court papers describe Fossett's estate as "vast", running into eight figures. ®

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Latest Comments

Another Addition to: Not that big ???

"Anybody who doubts this could happen (It's the USA ! It's only Nevada ! It's not that big) have obviously never been there (in Nevada)."

No kidding. I dare someone to find my brother's homestead out there. Even with the nearest little town's name, you couldn't tell from the map or from above.

And he likes it that way, the sod.

Dead bird for what you might find in the Nevada badlands.

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Addition to: Not that big ???

Not only have they not been to Nevada, they don't have much experience/know much about aviation. General Aviation pilots don't have to wear a watch with a rescue beacon, most don't. Most planes do have an ELT (emergency transmitter) but debending on when the Citabra was manufactured it may not have had to have had one. Once active, the thing can't last too long anyway. Finally, even at 2000 foot above ground level things on the ground look very small. A 6000x100 foot runway looks like a popsicle stick about 3 feet away. Now keep that in mind and look for one very small aircraft smashed up somewhere in Nevada, which [i]is[/i] a big place and its very easy to assume they would probably not find him rather than that they would. Also, in a good part of the western US it is unsettled and so big that there is actually no ATC/radar coverage at all at the altitudes he probably would have been flying.

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Anonymous Coward

Oh dear.

> Anybody who doubts this could happen (It's the USA ! It's only Nevada ! It's not that big) have obviously never been there (in Nevada).

Oh dear. They should have used [sarcasm]/[irony] tags.

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