The renowned U.S. aviator and adventurer Steve Fossett, famous for holding numerous records, has been declared legally dead on Friday by a Chicago court, five months after the airplane he was flying with disappeared over Nevada desert, media reported.

Fossett’s wife, Peggy V. Fossett, and lawyers for his estate filed a petition in November asking the Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago to declare him dead so the process of executing his will could begin. No one opposed the request.

"It was very sad and at first she hoped and sort of envisioned him walking down the road the next day with another story to tell. But as the days went on, she realized it wasn't going to happen as it had on other occasions when he'd had close calls,” Peggy’s attorney, Michael LoVallo said quoted by the Washington Post.

Investigators concluded that Fossett’s airplane was destroyed in a fatal accident.

“I believe the evidence is more than sufficient,” Judge Jeffrey Malak of the circuit court said in ruling declaring Fossett was dead, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The 63-year-old record-breaker disappeared with his airplane after taking off from a private airstrip near Yerington, Nevada, one of the most uninhabited regions of the continental United States, on September 3. He was heading toward Bishop, California.

Dozens of planes and helicopters spent more than a month searching 20,000 square miles of the rugged western Nevada Mountains for any trace of Fossett or his plane. As the winter approached, the search was suspended.

Born in Jackson, Tenn., in 1944, Fossett grew up in Garden Grove, Calif., and climbed his first mountain as a 12-year-old Boy Scout and got his pilot's license in college.

He became famous and cheered across the world for his staggering records. He managed to become the first person to single-handedly fly a balloon (2002) and airplane (2005) around the globe without any intermediate landings or refueling.

In 2006, he set a new record for “distance without landing” after 76 hours and 43 minutes of dramatic flight across 41,467 kilometers. He took off his ultra-light plane the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer from Florida and flew over the Atlantic twice before landing in a tourist resort on the south coast of England.

As an aviator, pilot and adventurer, the Californian broke and set over 100 world records, half of them still ruling the statistics.

Fossett has survived numerous near-misses and harrowing crash landings over the years, including a 9,000-meter (29,000-foot) plummet into the Coral Sea off Australia because of a storm-shredded balloon.

In another incident he managed to walk for almost 50 kilometers and get help after making an emergency landing.