Officials looking for missing American adventurer Steve Fossett have scaled back the seach effort after two weeks of hunting turned up no sign of him or his airplane.
Fossett took off from a private airport in Nevada on September 3. He was flying a light single-engine airplane to look for terrain suitable for an attempt to set a speed record on the ground.
Searchers in aircraft scoured more than 25,000 square kilometers of rugged desert wilderness. The found several other unrecorded airplane wrecks, but no sign of Fossett.
Officials with the Civil Air Patrol (a civilian Air Force auxiliary that conducts searches for missing aircraft) said Monday they had done all they could do. Airborne searching was halted, but two aircraft were on standby in case new clues came in.
Fossett is well known for his record-setting solo flights around the world by both balloon and airplane.
He had survived numerous close calls during his previous adventures, including a 9,000-meter plunge in a balloon into Australia's Coral Sea.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
