According to a statement by Madeira County Sheriff’s department, wreckage that was found on Wednesday during an aerial search in the Sierra Nevada Mountains has been confirmed to belong to missing adventurer Steve Fossett.
The wreckage, which was more precisely found in the Inyo National Forest near the town of Mammoth Lakes, was confirmed by ground crews to belong to a single-engine Bellanca plane, the same type as Fossett flew out of a remote ranch in Nevada on September 3 2007, never to be seen again. National Transportation Safety Board officials, who surveyed the site, reported that initial findings classified the site as a high-impact crash, with all the markings of a ‘non-survivable accident’. The engine was found roughly 300 feet from the wings and fuselage, both of which disintegrated upon impact.
Not far from the site, a hiker named Preston Morrow found Fossett’s ID on Monday. What he found tangled in a bush just off a trail, west of Mammoth lakes was a Federal Aviation Administration identity card, a pilot's license, a third ID and $1,005 in cash. He tried unsuccessfully to contact Fossett’s family, then turned over the items to the police.
"It was just weird to find that much money in the backcountry, and the IDs," said Morrow.  "My immediate thought was it was a hiker or backpacker's stuff, and a bear got to the stuff and took it away to look for food or whatever."
No human remains have been found near the crash site. Even so, Fossett had been declared legally dead by a judge since February. Searches continue for his body.
"The crash looked to be so severe that I doubt if someone would have walked away from it," said Madeira County sheriff John Anderson during a Thursday news conference.