Online volunteers using satellite-imaging tools, including Google Earth, joined the formal search for missing aviator Steve Fossett on 11 September 2007. Fossett had disappeared a week earlier after taking off solo from a private airstrip about 80 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada, and never returning.
Dozens of aircraft had scoured more than 10,000 square miles of Nevada backcountry without finding any trace of the pilot. Nevada State Police set up a tip hotline and said leads from web-based satellite searches were being reviewed. Administrators of Fossett's official website ran a parallel crowdsourcing effort through Amazon Mechanical Turk.
With the Reno Air Races due to begin Thursday, bringing more than 150 aircraft into the region, officials worried about civilian planes entering the search zone. Civil Air Patrol Major Cynthia Ryan asked the flying public to stay clear: "Give us a wide berth."
Fossett's single-engine Bellanca carried an emergency locator beacon that had not activated. An experienced record-setter, he had completed the first solo nonstop unrefueled circumnavigation of the globe aboard the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer in 67 hours, and in 2002 became the first person to circle the Earth solo by balloon. He had also survived a 29,000-foot plunge into the Coral Sea when a storm destroyed his balloon.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in September 2007, in its own words.