Declare Steve Fossett dead, asks adventurer's widow

The Register.uk ^ | 11/28/2007 | Lester Haines

[RicocheT]

The wife of missing adventurer Steve Fossett has filed a petition for her husband to be declared legally dead, some three months after the 63-year-old disappeared without trace in the Nevada desert.

Despite a huge search operation mounted following Fosset's evidently ill-fated 3 September flight from Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, roughly 70 miles southeast of Reno, neither he nor the remains of his Bellanca Citabria Super Decathalon have been found.

Mary Downie, one of Mrs Fossett's lawyers, told the Chicago Tribune: "Although an ongoing recovery mission continues, all involved have accepted the inevitable conclusion that Mr Fossett did not survive."

[RGSpincich]

He’s with DB Cooper. The dreaded Reno Triangle strikes again.

[anton]

“I was thinking that too. I wonder how much the estate is worth. Where did he get all his money anyway for all those failed attempts to fly around the world in a balloon?”

Fossett was a successful New york stockbroker and commodities trader. He was a Demorat and lived on the Upper East Side of New York. No Upper East Sider could relocate to Bali or whatever unless the New york Times could be on his doorstep by 10AM (rising time on Park Ave.). I say he’s dead as a doorknob.

[Badeye]

No time today, but thanks anyway.

[WestwardHo]

Thank you for sharing. I simply googled .

[FReepaholic]

...Thank you for sharing. I simply googled ...

I did too. That's how I found it.

[rockinqsranch]

So then I have closure in knowledge you haven’t a different word that can define adequately the finalizing of affairs relative to the passing of a loved one.

Thanks for nothing.

[L.N. Smithee]

A lot of people do not realize that when the body is not found, the surviving spouse gets into big financial problems. My daughter lost her husband at sea and it took three years for her to collect any insurance etc.etc. It mostly is that it takes way over a year just to get a death certificate and that screws up everything else. After watching the hell she went through, I really feel for those suffering from the same fate.

Thanks for the insight, but this is the wife of someone who was set for life if he lived to be 150, and she's waving the white flag after three months. I don't think skepticism is out of line.

[Bommer]

Can anybody explain to me how the terrain in that area could preclude a diligent search party from discovering his plane and him?

The problem is that he did not leave a flight plan. So essentually its a needle in the haystack.

[theDentist]

In honor of Mr Fossett, wherever he may be...

Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction holding me fast, how
Can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, i

Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to guide my way home
Unladened, empty and turned to stone

A soul in tension thats learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, i

Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air,
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, a state of bliss
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, i

Pink FLoyd, Learning to Fly