Survival experts doubt Fossett is still alive
Over the next few days, engineers will check Opportunity's instruments and command it to scale down the crater.
RENO, Nevada (AP) -- Like virtually everyone following the search for Steve Fossett, survival expert Kurt Kuznicki hopes the missing aviator will be found alive. But like other experts, Kuznicki doubts that will be the case.
"As kind of an adventure guy myself, I hope the other way. But I would say it would be really, really tough," said Kuznicki, a member of the conservation group Friends of Nevada Wilderness.
Fossett, 63, a former commodities trader who was the first to circle the globe solo in a balloon, was last heard from September 3 after taking off from a private airstrip about 80 miles southeast of Reno. Authorities believe he was carrying only one bottle of water.
Fossett's plane was equipped with an emergency beacon, and he was wearing a high-tech watch capable of generating a similar alarm. Searchers have received no signal from either device, and haven't spotted a lower-tech distress signal such as a fire or massive X made of rocks or sticks.
