Well it's Official:

Pilot/Adventurer Steve Fossett has been declared dead by the Cook County Circuit Court.

The declaration had been pursued by Steve’s wife Peggy, in order to resolve the legal status of his estate.

And so it ends..…after five months of searching by literally thousands of people. The search was one of the largest in history, covering over 20,000 square miles of rugged terrain. The search turned-up 18 previous accident sites ranging up seventy years old. All had gone down in the same general area without recovery.

As you remember, Fossett had gone on a routine flight in Nevada using a friend's

Decathlon, a small two seat plane. The flight was to look over locations for an attempt to break the land-speed record.

Fossett had an amazing life and held many world records. He was the first person to circle the globe solo in a balloon.

He also set world records by being the first to fly a plane around the world solo without refueling. That flight took 67 hours and covered 23000 miles.

His friend, Sir Richard Branson, noted that "Steve's lived his life to the full, and he hasn't wasted a minute of his life... Everything he's done, he's taken a calculated risk with."

Fossett had been inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame this July a few months before his fateful flight.