It’s now been one week since world record-breaking adventurer Steve Fossett disappeared while flying alone in his small plane in the Nevada desert see previous news story here.

Sixty-three-year old Fossett took off from a private ranch in a single-engine Citabria Super Decathlon at 0900 last Monday morning with four full tanks of fuel which was enough for a maximum of five hours’ flying time. However, when he failed to return by midday a major rescue operation was launched by the Air Force’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Virginia.

The search teams have now widened their search to cover 10,000sq miles of desert and more aircraft have been put into operations to join the search. According to Fossett’s website, Fossett’s staff pilot and search coordinator Mark Marshall the team is following up sighting reports which may indicate that Fossett’s Super Decathlon light aircraft was within a 20-30 mile radius of the ranch when it went down, so their efforts are focusing on that area.