Black Hawk helicopters comb Nevada desert for missing billionaire

High above the tumbleweed expanse of the Sierra Nevada desert, the search for the billionaire adventurer Steve Fossett completed its fifth full day last night withthe mystery of his disappearance no closer to being solved.

The hunt now involves some 20 light aircraft as well as Kiowa and Black Hawk helicopters from the Nevada National Guard. The Black Hawks, which have thermal-imaging equipment, have been flying every night without results.

Major Cynthia Ryan of the Civil Air Patrol pointed to the steep canyons, rugged mountains and desert of the 17,000 square mile search area below. "You can only truly see what amounts to the size of your fist, so you work your eyes along as we go by – a fist at a time," she said. "And you have to let your eyes actually stop moving so that they have time to focus and register what you're seeing. After four hours of this, you're beat."

Large areas of the desert are dotted with plane wreckage no one has yet removed, as well as abandoned cars. Maj Ryan called it a junkyard. Most crash sites are about 30 yards wide, "and you can very easily miss them", she added.

Mr Fossett took off at 9am on Monday for what should have been a three-hour flight in his single-engine Bellanca Super Decathlon, looking for test sites for an attempt to break the world land-speed record. He did not file a flight plan. The aircraft had enough fuel for four or five hours of flight, but reports yesterday indicated the pilot had only a bottle of water with him.

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