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Rescuers searching for the adventurer Steve Fossett in the Nevada desert have found old wrecks of planes, some of them from crashes decades ago. Forty-five aircraft are involved in the search for the missing millionaire, who disappeared on Monday while flying alone in his small plane.

Teams have scoured an area of 10,000 sq miles (25,900 sq km) of remote terrain, as yet unsuccessfully.

One object had given rescuers hope, but it was found not to be Fossett’s plane.

It was spotted south-east of the ranch from which Mr Fossett took off, but closer inspection revealed that it was not connected to him.

“Once again, you had your hopes raised and dashed, ” said Nevada Civil Air Patrol Major Cynthia Ryan.

After six days of intensive searches, rescuers have not found any sign of Mr Fossett’s plane, but they have spotted six planes which crashed in the desert in earlier years.

Still hopeful

The discovery of the six previously unknown wrecks underscores the difficulties of finding the single-engine plane in which Mr Fossett was flying.

“That’s always a possibility - that he may never be found,” Lyon County Undersheriff Joe Sanford told Associated Press.

“But I’d like to believe that with our state-of-the-art technology, the chances of finding him are much better.”

News of the old wrecks has prompted inquiries from people wondering if the pilots or passengers may be long-lost family members.

Searchers are holding out hope of finding Mr Fossett, Mr Sanford said.

“With the resources and assets we have, I feel comfortable we’ll find the plane in the near-term,”, he said.

“Whether it’ll be by us, a hunter or a skier, we’ll find it. I like to believe the glass is half full.”

Fossett, who over the years risked his life circling the globe in a hot-air balloon and an experimental lightweight aircraft, disappeared after taking off from a private airstrip Monday in an ordinary single-engine plane to scout sites for an attempt at a land-speed record in a rocket-propelled car.

Massive operation
Crews from three states searched by air and land over an area the size of Connecticut, marked by rugged mountains jutting to 10,000 feet.

Fossett’s plane, a Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon, had a locator device that sends a satellite signal after a rough landing, but no such signal had been received.

Fossett always wears a Breitling Emergency wristwatch that allows pilots to turn a knob and immediately signal their location, said Granger Whitelaw, a fellow pilot and a co-founder of the Rocket Racing League. But no such signal was activated.

Authorities said at one point they thought they had spotted Fossett’s plane and sent in a helicopter crew to confirm.

“We thought we had it nailed,” Nevada Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan told reporters late Wednesday. “Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of many dozen unmapped wreck sites from previous years.”

‘Washoe Zephyr’
Wind gusts in the area can whip up without warning from any direction, with sudden downdrafts that can drag a plane clear to the ground. Passengers flying even on commercial airliners between Las Vegas and Reno know to keep their seat belts fastened for a ride that is never smooth.

Mark Twain wrote about the “Washoe Zephyr” — named for the Nevada county — in the book “Roughing It.”

“But, seriously, a Washoe wind is by no means a trifling matter. It blows flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet music, now and then blows a stagecoach over and spills the passengers,” he wrote.

In 1999, three well-known glider pilots were killed in two separate accidents after taking off from the Minden airport.

Donald D. Engen, director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, died along with the former president of a gliding organization after their sailplane broke apart and fell 4,000 feet. And nationally ranked glider pilot Clem Bowman died when his glider plummeted 100 feet shortly after takeoff.