The area they're searching is hot and dry. The weather was okay, except for gusty winds.

"Steve has financial means to acquire any state of the art survival equipments on the market."

Only if he took it with him. It may be in the same bag with his sat phone. Maybe rich people also think "it won't happen to me". Neither money nor intelligence equals common sense.

He should have been able to bring a plane like that down as a glider if he had to, if he wasn't over rocks. He was supposed to be going to look at dry lake beds, and there's nothing better to land on unless the offroaders had created trenches in it while it was wet. In that case, it could have pitched over on its nose.

I hope there was water in the plane, because there's not much out in that area right now.

If he's lucky, he's alive and cussing not having more equipment with him.

Sue