I've been posting about this in detail on my other blog, Aviation Weblog, but I also wanted to post something here as well. It may not be exactly adventure/outdoor related, but it warrants a post.

It seems after more than a week of searching, experts are saying aviation pioneer, Steve Fossett, is likely died. Last week, he took off in a single-engine plane from Reno, Nevada to scout locations. He was looking to break another aviation accomplishment, the land-speed record. However, he lost contact and no one has heard from him since.

About a dozen planes have been searching the rugged Nevada Sierra Mountains. They've found eight other crashed planes, but not Fossett's. It has been said that there are hundreds of smaller planes in the mountains that are never accounted for. Fossett is trained in outdoor and wilderness techniques and is wearing a tracking device on his wrist.

"It's frustrating, but not tiring," said George Mixon, a crew member with the Colorado Civil Air Patrol who has been part of the search since Sunday.

Survival experts say a trained outdoorsman such as Fossett should have been able to signal rescuers with the emergency beacon from the plane or with his specially equipped wristwatch. Even if those didn't work, he could have built a fire or an X made of rocks or sticks, they said.

"He's either so injured he can't signal or he's perished," said David McMullen of Berkeley, Calif., a leader of the hiking group Desert Survivors, whose members frequently venture into some of the country's harshest terrain.

Fossett took off on Sept. 3 in a single-engine plane from a private airstrip about 80 miles southeast of Reno. He didn't leave a flight plan.

Maj. Cynthia Ryan of the Nevada Civil Air Patrol said Tuesday she's still betting on Fossett's "sheer grit and determination" to keep him alive.

"We still find people against all odds," she said. "Maybe he's got a couple of broken arms and can't signal."

Such injuries would worsen Fossett's chances of finding water in the 17,000-square-mile search area - about twice the size of New Jersey. Authorities believe he was carrying only one bottle of water.

"No food, that's not a problem. No water, that's a problem. That's a harsh desert out there," said Lee Bergthold, director of the Palmdale, Calif.-based Center for Wilderness Studies and a former Marine Corps survival instructor.