Hiker finds Steve Fossett's aviation IDs

By Jim Christie

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A hiker in a remote area of California has found two aviation identification cards belonging to millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, presumed dead after his plane went missing a year ago, a police spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

"We got confirmation they were his," said Erica Stuart, a spokeswoman for the Madera County Sheriff's Office, referring to the cards -- one a pilot's licence and the other from the Soaring Society of America.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said he could not confirm the authenticity of cards but that information on one matched FAA information on Fossett.

The cards and a sweatshirt were found in a remote part of Madera County in the eastern Sierras between Yosemite National Park and the Nevada border, but wreckage from the small airplane Fossett was piloting when he disappeared was not found.

Stuart said more than 30 search teams were being formed to comb the mountainous area for the wreckage in coming days ahead of a potential snowfall.

"It's very rugged alpine terrain," said Lt. Michael Salvador of the Madera County Sheriff's Office. "You hike in or you fly in" by helicopter.

Fossett, 63, vanished in his airplane after taking off from a private airstrip in Nevada in September 2007.

Despite weeks of extensive land and air searches, no wreckage was found, and he was declared legally dead in February after investigators concluded that his airplane was destroyed in a fatal accident.