another tragic air mystery was the story of steve fossett. he was a legendary plane and adventurer when he crashed his small plane in the nevada desert. no one found his wreckage and his remains for more than a year. let's get to my aviation panel back here. miles o'brien, you're the perfect guy to ask about the steve fossett mystery. you've even spent some time looking for him yourself, from what i understand, back in 2007. in this case, they spent a year and it turns out right where they were looking in the beginning, that's where he had crashed. and then they got a tip from a rancher who said the plane flew overhead and everybody moved the search area over to that area. meanwhile, that was the wrong area. so what did we learn? >> these things happen all the time. in the case of air france 447, there was a mistaken hydrological analysis of the currents, which put the search on the wrong location for a couple of months and set back the search for quite some time. david gallow will tell you chapter and verse on that one. it still makes him an

still no sign of steve fossett or his airplane. that is until a hiker finds some of fossett's personal belongings. it is now october 2008. more than a year after he disappeared. >> i came across the id card and the other cards. and the -- and the 100 dollar bills in the dirt and pine needles and stuff. i went wow, we put it altogether, it is that fossett guy. >> turns out these items are discovered in the part of the original search area. the mountains. search teams quickly change their focus once again. >> just about the time we were going to call off the search the aircraft from the yosemite national park spotted what they thought was wreckage on the ground. >> it is fossett's plane. right along the original radar track. the very spot in play before authorities shifted their attention to the desert. based on a so-called hot tip from a ranch hand. >> they probably could have found him relatively quickly if they had followed up on the evidence they had very early on in the search. >> instead of the plane being located in just days,