page_title: Steve Fossett
section_title: Recovery of wreckage and remains
hierarchical_section_title: Steve Fossett / Death / Recovery of wreckage and remains
caption_attribution_description: English: The Ritter Range within California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Author: Chuhern Hwang, own photo
context_page_description: James Stephen Fossett was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraft. He made his fortune in the financial services industry and held world records for five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot.
  A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, Fossett set more than one hundred records in five different sports, sixty of which still stood at the time of his death. He broke three of the seven absolute world records for fixed-wing aircraft recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, all in his Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. In 2002, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club of the UK, and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007.
  Fossett disappeared on September 3, 2007 while flying a light aircraft over the Great Basin Desert, between Nevada and California. Extensive searches proved unsuccessful, and he was declared legally dead in February of the following year.
context_section_description: On September 29, 2008, a hiker found three crumpled identification cards in the Eastern Sierra Nevada in California about 65 miles (100 km) south (186 degrees) of Fossett's take-off site. The items were confirmed as belonging to Fossett and included an FAA-issued card, his Soaring Society of America membership card and $1,005 in cash.
  On October 1, late in the day, air search teams spotted wreckage on the ground at coordinates 37°40′2.8″N 119°08′0″W at an elevation of 10,100 feet (3,100 m) and about 750 yards (690 m) from where the personal items had been found. Later that evening the teams confirmed identification of the tail number of Fossett's plane. The crash site is on a slope beneath the southwest side of a ridge line (600 feet (180 m) lower than the top of the ridge) in the Ansel Adams Wilderness in Madera County, California. Other named places near the crash site include Minaret Mine (2,000 feet (600 m) west), Emily Lake (0.7 miles (1.1 km) northeast), Minaret Lake (1.8 miles (2.9 km) west-southwest), the Minaret peaks (3 miles (5 km) west), Devils Postpile National Monument (4.5 miles (7.2 km) southeast), and the town of Mammoth Lakes (the nearest populated place, 9 miles (14 km) east-southeast). The site is 10 miles (16 km) east of Yosemite National Park.
  Over the next two days, ground searchers found four bone fragments that were about 2 by 1.5 inches (5 by 4 cm) in size. However, DNA tests subsequently showed that these fragments were not human.
  On October 29, search teams recovered two large human bones that they suspected might belong to Fossett. These bones were found 0.5 miles (0.80 km) east of the crash site. Tennis shoes with animal bite marks on them were also recovered. On November 3, California police coroners said that DNA profiling of the two bones by a California Department of Justice forensics laboratory confirmed a match to Fossett's DNA. Madera County Sheriff John Anderson said Fossett would have died on impact in such a crash, and that it was not unusual for animals to drag remains away.
caption: The crash site is on Volcanic Ridge, part of the Ritter Range. Volcanic Ridge is shown here, in the left foreground.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A540", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2006:06:24 11:36:58", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4422", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "11/2", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:06:24 11:36:58", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:06:24 11:36:58", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "157/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "157/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "88", "EXIF FocalLength": "116/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1600", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1200", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2824", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "64000/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1200000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}