Though I barely followed the Steve Fossett search operation, I stumbled across this interesting news story.

From The Sunday Times
December 16, 2007
Nothing seemed amiss on the morning of September 3 – Labor Day in the United States – when Steve Fossett, world-renowned adventurer, took off from a private airstrip in western Nevada for an early morning flight.

It was thought he planned to scout the area for possible locations for his latest pioneering endeavour, an attempt to break the world land-speed record, but it now seems more likely Fossett just wanted to get airborne.

Full article here.

Beware of British newspapers. They don't employ fact checkers and simply make things up. The Sunday ones in particular
Read the same story in two different newspapers and you wouldn't think they were talking about the same event.
The Sock

It is possible that he flew into a cliff or steep hill and the impact caused the earth to shift and slide enough that it mostly, or entirely, covered the wreckage. There are also a lot of deep gullies and washes that could easily hide a wreck. A lot of people assume that plane crashes always look like what you see in the movies with a huge ball of flame and wreckage that burn for hours and leave large blackened scars.

Depends on the papers. The broadsheets are world class (Times, Telegraph etc.) and about as good as you could wish for.

The redtops are trash, but then if you buy a paper based on the girl in the bikini on the front, frankly I doubt analytical thinking is your forte :-)

I am betting that it was just your run-of-the-mill airplane crash. Here's another one that seemingly "disappeared off the face of the earth": Stendec. That one even spawned a UFO magazine. It's real fate, although more mundane, was still interesting; the aircraft buried itself in the top of a glacier and was then carried to the bottom by the moving ice, where it emerged 50 years later. No aliens, no conspiracy, no suicide, no intrigue. I imagine that the remains of Mr. Fossett or his plane will be located eventually as well.