Lost aviator Steve Fossett’s ID papers reported found

? Preston Morrow was having a little adventure, wandering off-trail alone to look for a remote mine. He was scrambling down a rugged embankment Monday when he noticed some brittle, weathered identification cards scattered among the decomposing pine needles.

“JAMES STEPHEN FOSSETT,” a pilot license read.

As in Steve Fossett, who circumnavigated the globe by himself in 2002 and vanished on a solo flight in a small plane more than a year ago. The subject of untold fruitless hours of searching by teams armed with high-tech equipment and NASA-designed software.

Didn’t ring a bell.

“I have to admit the name didn’t pop into my head,” Morrow said. It wasn’t until Tuesday, when he discussed his find with co-workers at a Mammoth Lakes sporting goods store, that he realized what he might be holding.

“Oh my gosh, this is going to be huge,” Morrow remembers thinking.

A picture of the pilot license – including a certificate number and Fossett’s date of birth – was sent to the Federal Aviation Administration and matched the agency’s records, spokesman Ian Gregor said.

“We’re trying to determine the authenticity of the document,” Gregor said.

The find fired up flagging search efforts and gave the widow and friends of the millionaire adventurer renewed hope.

“I am hopeful that this search will locate the crash site and my husband’s remains,” Peggy Fossett said in a statement Wednesday. “I am grateful to all of those involved in this effort.”

Morrow, an avid outdoorsman who moved to Mammoth Lakes to be closer to the mountain slopes he had skied since childhood, was west of the Sierra Nevada town when he found IDs with Fossett’s name and some scattered cash – 10 $100 bills and a $5 bill.

Fossett disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February following a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.

Aviators had flown over Mammoth Lakes, about 90 miles south of the ranch, in the search, but it had not been considered a likely place to find the plane. The most intense searching was concentrated well north of the town, given what searchers knew about sightings of Fossett’s plane, his plans for when he had intended to return.

Search teams led by the Madera County Sheriff’s Department began combing through the loose, rugged terrain Wednesday looking for the airplane wreckage. An air effort was expected to be under way soon.