LAS VEGAS, Sept. 5 — As the search for the wealthy adventurer Steve Fossett entered its third day, rescue crews and aviation experts expressed bafflement Wednesday at his disappearance and the inability to find him.
They pointed out that Mr. Fossett was a highly skilled pilot who was flying on a clear day over familiar terrain when his single-engine aircraft vanished Monday morning in rural western Nevada on what was to have been a brief flight.
More than a dozen aircraft have been used to scour a mountainous area south of Reno since the search began in earnest at 6 p.m. Monday, but so far there has been no sign of Mr. Fossett or the blue and white Citabria Super Decathlon he was flying.
What is more, officials say, they have not detected the emergency locator beacon that should have automatically gone off in the event of a crash, or that could have been enabled by Mr. Fossett himself if he was capable.
“This is kind of strange, because these aircraft have transponders and emergency locators and you can usually readily find them anywhere in the world, including under the sea,” said Ross Aimer, chief executive of Aviation Experts, a consulting firm in San Clemente, Calif., who has flown the region several times. “This guy is totally lost in what I would say is not a no man’s land. So far, nobody’s heard the electronic location beacon. That sounds to me very, very strange.”
But I was listening to BBC World through News Radio last night and Luciano had just passed away just a few hours earlier. It made a change from hearing about global warming and the Middle East anyhow.