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.