- American aviator, sailor and adventurer, best known for breaking 116 world records in five different sports.
- Circumnavigated the globe nonstop and unrefueled in 76 hours, 45 minutes in the GlobalFlyer, also setting the record for the longest flight by any aircraft in history with a distance of 26,389 miles (2006).
- Succeeded in becoming the first person to achieve a solo balloon flight around the world on his sixth attempt (2002).
- Owned homes in Beaver Creek, Colorado and Chicago as well as a vacation home in Carmel, California.
- Good friends with billionaires Richard Branson and Barron Hilton, grandfather of Paris Hilton.
- After the plane he was flying over the Nevada desert failed to return and he was reported missing on 3 September 2007, his wife requested that he be declared legally dead (26 November 2007). After a court hearing, he was declared legally dead on 15 February 2008 by Cook County (Illinois) Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Malak.
- Inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007.
- Madera County Sheriff's Department confirmed that the wreckage of Fossett's Bellanca was found at the base of a mountainside, about 90 miles south from where he took off. While most of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, his body was not found. A week earlier, a hiker found Fossett's ID and cash near the site, which were turned over to police after efforts to contact his widow were unsuccessful. Fossett was declared legally dead on 15 February 2008. (1 October 2008).
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