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Remains found at Fossett crash site likely human |
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Monday, 03 November 2008 |
 A search team from Madera County, along with help from Mono County Search and Rescue, returned to the Steve Fossett Crash site earlier this week. While searching the area, the team discovered Fossett’s driver’s license, cash, a pair of tennis shoes and what is believed to be human remains approximately a half mile from the crash site. Photo/map courtesy the Madera County Sheriff’s Department By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
11-1-2008 Madera County Sheriff John Anderson announced this week that bones found Wednesday about a half-mile east of the Steve Fossett crash site are believed to be human.
A massive search was launched north of Mammoth Lakes in early October that turned up four bone fragments. Those samples were sent to a Department of Justice crime lab for analysis, but no concrete evidence was forthcoming to suggest the remains were human.
“Their findings were deemed inconclusive because lab technicians could not determine whether or not those bone fragments are human,” Anderson said during a press conference Thursday.
“We again went back over there yesterday,” Anderson said.During that search, which included three Madera County Search and Rescue team members and five deputies from the Mono County Sheriff’s Department, personnel located Steve Fossett’s Illinois driver’s license, a pair of tennis shoes and a $100 bill.
“We also found skeletal remains,” Anderson said. “Although I’m not an anthropologist, I’ll go on record saying they’re probably human remains.”
A petition was submitted to an Illinois court requesting that Steve Fossett be declared deceased in February. Sheriff Anderson was asked to consider signing a death certificate, but without remains he could not state unequivocally that Steve Fossett perished in the Sept. 3, 2007 crash that destroyed the single-engine aircraft he was last seen taking off in from an airstrip near Yerington, Nev.
The bone fragments are not at a DOJ crime lab, which Anderson said has made the Fossett evidence a priority, and expects to have results as soon as Monday.
“We will wait to do the death certificate until we have the DNA results,” Anderson said.
Fossett was reported missing, Sept. 3, 2007.
Thirteen months after his disappearance, on Oct. 1, 2008, the Madera County Sheriff’s Department received word that items believed to belong to Fossett were found in Madera County and handed over to authorities in Mono County.
The items (two aviation identification cards along with US currency) were found near Minaret Summit – located in the vicinity of the Ansel Adams Wilderness in the mountains of eastern Madera County.
By morning of Oct. 2 Sheriff Anderson was able to confirm that what appeared to be pieces of a plane spotted the night before were in fact wreckage from Steve Fossett’s aircraft. The location of the crash was roughly a quarter mile away from where his personal effects had been discovered.
The crash occurred in Madera County – just seven miles west of the border between Madera and Mono counties.
Even though personal effects and plane wreckage were found in Madera County, the location of the crash was closer in proximity to Mammoth Lakes. According to Anderson’s office, the region where the discovery was made is too remote to reach in a timely fashion from the Madera County side of the mountain.
“The fastest and most efficient way to handle the recovery operation was to deploy search teams from Mammoth Lakes Airport which is only six to seven miles away,” Anderson said.
Since the initial call-out on Oct. 1, search teams under the direction of the Madera County Sheriff’s Department have twice returned to the crash site – on Friday Oct. 17 and Wednesday Oct. 29.
Up until Wednesday, Sheriff Anderson said, “we could not categorically state that Steve Fossett perished in that crash because the only conclusive evidence our Department had were those two aviation identification cards, and $1,000 in cash.”
But in light of these recent developments, that has changed. “Pending DNA results,” said Sheriff Anderson, “I believe our coroner’s investigation is over and the Fossett family will finally have closure.”
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 25 November 2008 )
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