Steve Fossett's ID papers reported found
A hiker came across the papers in the backcountry near Mammoth Mountain, according to the Madera County sheriff's department. The adventurer vanished in September 2007.
Identification papers believed to be those of missing adventurer Steve Fossett were found today by a hiker in the Sierra wilderness, according to a spokeswoman for the Mammoth Lakes Police Department.
The ID papers were found on the western side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains by a hiker from Mammoth Lakes, officials said. The papers reportedly carried the name of James Steven Fossett and the same date of birth as the adventurer, who vanished in September 2007 after taking off by plane from a remote Nevada ranch.
Erica Stuart, a spokeswoman for the Madera County sheriff's department, said officials were examining the materials that may be linked to Fossett. The Madera County sheriff's office is the lead agency on a multi-agency search effort that is to be launched today.
Steve Fossett: A photograph on Thursday's front page showing $100 bills and a pilot's license that apparently belonged to billionaire Steve Fossett was credited to Rob Meyers, Discovery Channel. It should have been credited to Michael Slee, Discovery Channel / LMNO Productions. In addition, Thursday's article about the found items said that video executive Eric Schotz had visited the site near Mammoth Lakes where the find was made. Schotz's video crew from LMNO Productions was at the site, but not Schotz.
Steve Fossett: An article in Thursday's Section A about missing aviator Steve Fossett said that Mammoth Lakes attorney David Baumwohl accompanied a hiker to the location where he had found documents belonging to Fossett. Baumwohl is an advisor to the hiker, Preston Morrow, but he did not accompany him to the site.
Stuart said the rugged, heavily wooded terrain around Mammoth Mountain and an area called the Minarets will be searched both by crews in the air and on foot.
Whether this was an area that had been scoured before for evidence of the aviator is an open question. Stuart said Madera County had not been involved in any previous searches.
The materials were found by a man hiking off-trail in rugged backcountry near Mammoth. Preston Morrow discovered 10 $100 bills and three tattered pieces of identification, including a Federal Aviation Administration pilot's license and a membership card in a soaring society, according to David Baumwohl, an attorney who said he has known Morrow for some time.
Baumwohl declined to say whether he had represented Morrow in the past.
Morrow, who told Baumwohl that he didn't know who Fossett was, approached the attorney for advice on how to proceed. Baumwohl contacted the Fossett family's attorneys in Illinois, who, he said, did not immediately respond.
"We assume they thought we were scammers," he said.
Before turning the cash and cards into Mammoth police, Morrow and the attorney revisited the site with a GPS device and a video camera so that they could provide as much information as possible to authorities, Baumwohl said. On the return visit, they found a Nautica fleece pullover and left it at the scene, anchored by a rock.
Baumwohl theorized that Fossett's plane may have hit a nearby ridge or mountainside, ejecting the pilot. No body was found near the other materials because bears or mountain lions may have dragged it off, he said.
