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You left out one other possibility: They searched the wrong area.

Early reports said that Fosset's flight was to check out a dry lake bed near Eureks, Nevada for a possible land speed run.

Eureka, Nevada is on the eastern side of the state, south of Carlin. There are such features there, especially over the mountains to the East of Eureka, Nevada which have very low surface variation and might be suitable.

There are also a lot of mountains and some pretty hostile country between there and the western part of the state.

I used to live and farm near Eureka. Fossett came out to the Eureka County Commissioners a couple years ago to ask about holding his speed trial on the playa north of Diamond Valley. If you look at a map of Nevada (you’ll have to look at more than a road map), look for where Sadler-Brown road forks northeast off NV-278. Go out Sadler-Brown about 10 miles. Go south of the Brown Ranch (which will be on the south side of Sadler-Brown) or look south of the Sadler Ranch on that road. You’ll see a big empty playa. That’s where Fossett wanted to do his speed run.

Here, easier yet:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Eureka,+NV&ie=UTF8&ll=39.963438,-115.988159&spn=0.904144,1.367798&t=h&z=10

OK, see that big white area in the middle of the map? That’s it. All the green circles at the bottom are the farming area of Diamond Valley. Our farm used to be at the southernmost edge of that farming area.

Anyway, the BLM red tape was fouling Fossett up. Eureka County was thrilled to have Fossett’s team come out and we residents of the area were as excited as all get-out to have him come in.

So Fossett went off, looking for other areas. There’s one area in particular where I think he could have been scouting the day he disappeared:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Eureka,+NV&ie=UTF8&ll=39.31491,-117.505646&spn=0.456335,0.683899&t=h&z=11

The problem is, there is no town to speak of nearby for logistics support, lodging, etc. But that playa (last I was over there) was nice and smooth.

“
You left out one other possibility: They searched the wrong area.
“

Thanks for the elaboration.
I was inarticulately trying to say that under my scenario #2.
It kind of falls under my recall of a plane lost in the Andes...
I’ll post a link of the PBS/NOVA show on that in a little bit.

But you really filled in the possibility of not searching the right
sectors with your knowledge of the actual terrain of the region.
(I’ve never been in that area...but like a lot of “the West”, there’s
a LOT of wide-open spaces.)