Found, at long last

The AP has a story by Tracie Cone and Juliana Barbassa:

After an aerial search turned up what appears to be wreckage of a plane, ground crews are trying to determine whether it was the one piloted by adventurer Steve Fossett when he vanished more than a year ago. Searchers had been combing a rugged part of eastern California on Wednesday after a hiker found identification documents belonging to Fossett earlier in the week.
The hiker, Preston Morrow, said he found a Federal Aviation Administration identity card, a pilot's license, a third ID and $1,005 cash tangled in a bush off a trail just west of the town of Mammoth Lakes on Monday. He said he turned over the items to local police Wednesday after unsuccessful attempts to contact Fossett's family.
The information on the pilot's license — including Fossett's name, address, date of birth and certificate number — matched FAA records, spokesman Ian Gregor said. Authorities authenticated two of the documents, including Fossett's pilot's license, Anderson said.
The IDs provide the first possible clue about Fossett's whereabouts since he disappeared 3 September 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.
Aviators had flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 90 miles south of the ranch, in the search for Fossett, but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane. The most intense searching was concentrated north of the town, given what searchers knew about sightings of Fossett's plane, his plans for when he had intended to return and the amount of fuel he had in the plane.
The California Civil Air Patrol and private planes from Hilton's ranch previously had flown over the area, but it was "extremely rough country," said Joe Sanford, undersheriff in Lyon County, Nev., which was involved in the initial search.
Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.
He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

Rico says if he'd just had an ELT in the plane, this would have been all over a year ago...