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Nancy Grace

Adventurer Steve Fossett Missing in Nevada

Aired September 04, 2007 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, breaking news. World famous adventurer, multi-millionaire, world record holder Steve Fossett vanishes into thin air, Fossett, a veteran pilot flying solo in a single-engine aircraft taking off from a private airstrip, Nevada. Tonight, over 36 hours since takeoff. Thirteen planes in the air, rescue teams searching hundreds of miles of rugged terrain, western Nevada, in a search for Steve Fossett.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lone pilot identified as famed aviator Steve Fossett missing since yesterday has not been located despite early search efforts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A massive search is under way at this hour in western Nevada for adventurer Steve Fossett. Thirteen planes are now in the air, looking for him over hundred of miles of rugged terrain. Fossett`s single-engine plane took of at a private airstrip yesterday morning and has not returned. Fossett is the first man to ever fly around the world without stopping. The billionaire also holds world records for circling the globe by balloon and sailboat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And tonight, a 22-year-old coed vanishes without a trace, Brigham Young University, the BYU senior last seen leaving her Provo apartment on her own mountain bike. Tonight, an all-out search for a silver and purple Schwinn as police have just revealed her debit card used one day after she goes missing. Tonight, day five in the search for Camille Cleverley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-two-year-old student Camille Cleverley disappeared from her off-campus apartment Thursday. Classes may be back in session at Brigham Young University, but the bright-eyed, driven college student isn`t there. Police say Camille vanished, her wallet, keys and a silver and purple Schwinn bicycle all missing. She hasn`t been heard from since. She`s described as studious, athletic, responsible and willing to help. The last thing loved ones say Camille Cleverley would do is run away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. First of all, out to a live presser. We`re bringing it to you live from Minden (ph), Nevada, on Fossett.

MAJ. CYNTHIA S. RYAN, CIVIL AIR PATROL: ... if you`re not on your toes. But otherwise, I think that we`ve done a really great day`s worth of searching in spite of the wind, and hopefully, tomorrow it won`t be as bad.

QUESTION: How do you figure the square mile area -- sounds like it`s a vast area, maybe several thousand square miles.

RYAN: Well, out of the roughly 110,000 square miles that constitutes Nevada, we`re concentrating on a 600-square-mile area of search. It`s a very large haystack, and an airplane is a very small needle. There`s no doubt about it, no way around it.

QUESTION: What do you know about what Steve Fossett was doing when he left, where he might be going?

RYAN: As I understood from talking to some of the pilots over at the Flying M ranch out of Yerington, that he was just going out for some fun flying, and he was going to maybe try and spot some playas where he might be able to test land-speed-record vehicles, and otherwise just have a good time for a few hours before he left town.

QUESTION: But obviously, a very experienced pilot, as we all know. What did he have with him? Was he traveling light?

RYAN: As I understand it, he planned to be gone such a short length of time that he did not take some of the emergency equipment with him that he would normally take. But he still had, as far as we know, a functioning ELT. The man probably has a cell phone on him, but cell phone coverage is spotty in Nevada.

QUESTION: Is there some sort of beacon or something in the plane that would give off a signal?

RYAN: Yes, that`s the ELT. And what happens there is it`s activated on impact. It send a satellite signal. It`s picked up by orbiting satellites and relayed through Langley, Virginia, to us. And short -- short of an impact situation, a pilot, a downed pilot can actually remove that ELT from the tail of the airplane and turn it on and off manually to conserve the battery power, and hopefully, signal a satellite, setting off a series of events like I`ve just described.

QUESTION: Have you received any sort of communication that way?

RYAN: No. No, not as far as I`ve been told.

QUESTION: Can you describe for people not familiar with this area what kind of terrain that 600-mile area is?

RYAN: I think you can characterize it as high desert, a lot of sagebrush but in some very rugged terrain. The mountain peaks around here can get really rugged and treacherous, with a lot of deep ravines that are hard to search. And what you should consider in a search scenario like this is the daylight areas and angle of sun. Something you may not be able to see because of the morning angle of sun might become apparent later in the day as the sun goes towards the west. That`s why we keep searching areas repeatedly, and therefore, you know, accumulating a certain knowledge of what the success rate might be within that grid area.

QUESTION: Could he have flown into some sort of restricted air space that would have set off some sort of signal?

RYAN: I am sure that with all of the resources available to the Hiltons over there with their aircraft they`re equipped with, fully functioning GPS navigational units, and Steve being a guy that flies around the world in a balloon, I think he knows how to use them. So flying into a restricted area would be very unlikely.

QUESTION: You said 600 square miles, but earlier the discussion (INAUDIBLE) was 90 miles or so or 100 miles out (INAUDIBLE)

RYAN: Well, that would be the maximum range that we would be considering. You know, we have to draw lines -- we have to draw lines somewhere.

QUESTION: Have you verbalized your boundaries for, like, if we wanted to make a map, like, north up to this point, east over to this point...

RYAN: I think if you took Yerington as the north center point, go about 75 miles to the west of Yerington and about 100 miles to the east of Yerington, then go down as far as Mammoth airport, and you end up with sort of a columnar-shaped search area.

QUESTION: And that was determined based on?

RYAN: Based on his direction of flight, the type and distance capable, according to the fuel he had on board, which was full fuel. Depending on how the pilot manages the fuel, we`re talking about between four and five hours of flight time.

QUESTION: Any anecdotal information from witnesses that you spoke to, to target your search area based on maybe looking for lakebeds?

RYAN: Well, looking at our sectional charts, aviation charts, there are a number of playa areas, dry lakebeds, that would be, you know, convenient targets. And certainly, we have been looking at them and at mountain passes leading into those areas.

QUESTION: If you don`t come up with anything tonight, what does -- what are you looking at for the future? What happens tomorrow? What`s the schedule? How many aircraft go out, et cetera?

RYAN: OK. What we`ll do is take a look at the areas that we have searched today. We come up with a cumulative probability of success in those areas based on the number of times they`ve been searched, how long the searchers spent in those areas. If we think that that area has been exhausted, then we move on to the adjacent area and just keep working out in a very methodical manner that we`ve developed over the last 60 years within the Civil Air Patrol.

QUESTION: Do you have any reason to believe that there was some sort of equipment malfunction that would have forced him to put the plane down?

RYAN: I`d have to speculate, and that would be irresponsible.

QUESTION: Was the plane (INAUDIBLE)

RYAN: Pardon?

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) Hilton property?

RYAN: Yes, as far as I know.

QUESTION: You said all airplanes weren`t back yet. How late are they going to be flying?

RYAN: They will be flying until just about dusk.

(CROSSTALK)

RYAN: The guard equipment will be going until about 11:00 o`clock.

QUESTION: Could you describe the technology (INAUDIBLE) could you describe the technology that will be brought here tonight?

RYAN: Which?

QUESTION: In the helicopter and the C-130.

RYAN: April (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Both the helicopter and the C-130 are equipped with infrared cameras, things that allow them to look for heat signatures in the evenings, things like that. The helicopter is not quite as advanced as the C-130. The C-130 Skathview (ph) system actually has a pod that`s mounted on the bottom of the aircraft. And what that pod does is it relays the video information to the imagery analysts sitting on the aircraft. They see it on their video screens. They can look at the imagery. They can, you know, decide, Hey, we want to look closer to this, No, we can ignore this, Let`s go down and take a closer look at this.

It can do a variety of things. They can, if need be, also downlink that video directly to someone on the ground. So if someone on the ground says, Hey, go look at point A and look at it closely, they can hover in an area to give a closer look. It`s really -- it`s amazing technology. We`ve used it during Hurricane Katrina. They`ve used it during a lot of our fires and floods that we`ve had in northern Nevada.

QUESTION: April, with your training, if he`s out there in the playa where there`s absolutely no shade, how long does he have?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I couldn`t answer how long, you know, someone may survive out in the wilderness -- on the playa with no -- with no...

QUESTION: Given what this guy has accomplished (INAUDIBLE) do you give him better odds than, say, someone else that might be out there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m not sure that I`m in a position to speak to that. I couldn`t tell you.

RYAN: I tend to concur with April. It was -- the comment was made by one of the people who knows Mr. Fossett quite well that he`s been known to walk out 30 miles when he got into trouble a couple of times. And so he`s a very savvy and methodical and determined pilot, and I`d give him the highest odds.

QUESTION: Do you know if the plane was equipped with any kind of flares or any kind of survival kit, anything?

RYAN: I don`t -- I don`t have any information for that.

QUESTION: Are there ground crews out there tonight?

RYAN: Yes, there are four ground crews, two from Nevada counties and two from California counties. And they`ll be pulled back in as dark approaches.

QUESTION: Where did they work? What areas were they?

RYAN: I`m not sure. I haven`t been able to find that out yet.

QUESTION: What was the space, say, by air you were able to cover? You say it`s 600 miles, basically. How much were you able to look at today?

RYAN: That would be a tough one to figure out. That`s going to -- that`s going to come later in the day, when we come up with our final statistics for the day, and I just don`t have that available now.

QUESTION: Major, can you tell us what this means to the aviation community? Obviously, so many pilots have heard of him, admired him. How are they handling this news today?

RYAN: Well, I guess you`d have to ask them. But I would say that a lot of people are very concerned and hope for the best with him because he is an aviation icon and pioneer.

QUESTION: What about volunteers and pilots volunteering to fly over the area? Are you encouraging that?

RYAN: No, we seriously discourage that. We have aircraft out there that search in a highly trained manner, and for some cowboy to go out there and be in the same grid with us, we`ll call our people back immediately. It`s too dangerous. Danger of collision.

QUESTION: Sorry, Major. Is there any last known radar data that would suggest to you his direction or location?

RYAN: Nothing definitive. They`re massaging the data, and as far as I`ve heard, they haven`t come up with anything specific yet, no.

QUESTION: Only that he flew out (INAUDIBLE)

RYAN: Pardon?

QUESTION: That he flew off in a southerly direction?

RYAN: I couldn`t hear you.

QUESTION: That he flew in a southerly direction when he took off?

RYAN: That`s really all we know at this time.

QUESTION: Could you give us a sense of how difficult it is to see from the elevation of the search craft? Are you fairly confident that you can be sure that you have indeed searched an area and can check it off a list, or do you go back in a few times? Give us a sense of what you see and how you deal with the fact that you may have fly over (INAUDIBLE)

RYAN: Sure. Sure. When we go out, ideally, we have a three-man crew in each one of our Cessna 182 search aircraft, which, by the way, are owned by the Air Force. We have a pilot, and his job is to fly the aircraft safely, not look for whatever might be on the ground. In the right seat next to him, we have a highly trained observer. That person`s responsibility is to operate the radios, the transponder, to look out that side of the airplane and direct the search, essentially. Then in the back seat behind the pilot, looking out the other side of the airplane, we have another observer/scanner.

We teach them very specific skills on how to search, how to look. People see without -- you know, they look without actually seeing sometimes. We teach people how to actually see, to move their eyes across the landscape in relation to a moving aircraft. Now, when you add in wind like this and you`re bouncing up and down, it increases the difficulty. But as we go back over...

GRACE: We`ll take you straight back into that presser. Right now, we are hearing the very latest out of Nevada.

I want to go out to Christiane Brown with KJFK 1230 AM. What can you tell us about the investigation? I know he took off in a southerly direction, but that means absolutely nothing. Very often, pilots will take up and then veer in the direction in which they want to go.

CHRISTIANE BROWN, TALK SHOW HOST, KJFK 1230 AM: I think that`s that the problem, is that they have so little information right now to go on, that that`s pretty much all they can say is that he took off taking south. He was supposed to be back by noon. And when he didn`t come back by noon, some of the individual pilots started looking for him themselves before they started a huge search. And it wasn`t until about 6:00 PM that the search started in full for him. But their problem is, again, he didn`t file a flight plan because he was just really doing some pleasure flying.

GRACE: When you say pleasure flying -- with me is Christiane Brown with 1230 AM -- where was he going?

BROWN: Basically, he was just heading south, as we said, and saying that he was scouting some of the dry land beds. There`s speculation, but you know, none of it`s really backed up, that he might have been looking for a place to possibly practice working on his racer or something like that that he might be doing. He was in Sparks in Nevada in August, preparing a jet racer to break a land speed record, and that`s in the Bonneville Flats In Utah. So there was some speculation that he might be looking for areas out there, that he might test his racer. But that`s just speculation.

GRACE: OK, we have been told, very much like Christiane Brown, that Fossett, who is a world-famous adventurer, was looking for playas. He was looking for dry lakebeds. A playa is where lakes intersect. He was looking for dry ones.

With us right now is a very special guest. This is a friend of Steve Fossett. He has gone flying with Fossett. Jon Najarian is with us. For those that are not familiar with Fossett, could you tell them some of his accomplishments? It`s everything from a balloon record around the world to the Iditarod.

JON NAJARIAN, FRIEND OF STEVE FOSSETT: Exactly right. Steve used to take me out skiing with him out in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Steve would not only ski all day, Nancy, but then he`d want to race you up the mountain in snowshoes after the day was over. And then, depending on who won that race, he`d want to go around the ice rink speedskating. So I mean, this is a guy that just loved competing.

And I don`t want to put that in past tense, though, because I think if Steve could find a flat place to land the plane, Steve is fine and probably just waiting for us to find him...

GRACE: Yes. Let`s not give up on him yet.

NAJARIAN: ... because, like I say, he`s a very skilled pilot...

GRACE: Yes, let`s not...

NAJARIAN: ... a very skilled pilot.

GRACE: ... give up on him yet. I mean, according to what I`ve been looking up about him, Jon -- I mean, I knew about the going around the world solo on a balloon. I knew about the Iditarod. But according to what I`ve been able to find, he swam the English Channel, did the Iditarod dogsled race, the triathlon in Hawaii, the Le Mans (ph) sports car race, holds world records in airplane flight, ballooning, sailing, glider. I mean, you name it, he`s done it. This guy is -- he`s not down for the count yet.

NAJARIAN: No, not by a long stretch. And for that English Channel swim, for instance, he did that three times before he finally made it. So he`s got the endurance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Why didn`t he file a flight plan? Isn`t that kind of procedure, or is that uncommon?

RYAN: No, it`s not uncommon. In fact, when you`re flying out of a private airstrip in a remote area like this, it`s not common to call in and file a flight plan, especially if you don`t plan on being gone for very long. It`s not like if you were flying out of Reno/Tahoe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Well, not according to everyone. Typically, a flight plan is filed. Tonight, world-famous adventurer Steve Fossett is missing, 13 planes in the air today looking for him.

Out to the lines. Karla in North Carolina. Hi, Karla.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.

GRACE: What`s your question, dear?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With all the commuter jets and private planes we have now, why is it that these planes do not have built-in tracking devices, especially post-9/11?

GRACE: You know what, Karla? You are dead on. I mean, practically every rental car has a Lojack on it.

Let`s go out to Mary Schiavo. She`s an aviation attorney, former inspector general of the Department of Transportation. Also with us, Arthur Wolk, aviation attorney, licensed jet pilot, has flown many similar aircraft many, many times. Welcome to both of you.

First to you, Mary. No flight plan. Thoughts?

MARY SCHIAVO, AVIATION ATTORNEY, FMR INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPT. OF TRANS.: No flight plan for many places. Like, when I was a professor at the aviation department at Ohio State, absolutely mandatory. We made everyone file a flight plan. Of course, you have to remember to close it or they will be looking for you while you`re at home. But while it`s not required, it is very advisable, along with having an operating transponder. But again, that`s not required. We have various loopholes in the law.

GRACE: To Arthur Wolk, aviation attorney. Number one, no flight plan. Number two, what about Karla`s question? Why not have a chip in every plane at this juncture that gives you a location?

ARTHUR WOLK, AVIATION ATTORNEY: There is a transponder in the airplane, and that provides the location to radar. Of course, on this particular flight, I would doubt that there`s any radar coverage that low. In addition to that, not filing a flight plan -- should have filed a flight plan, especially in the mountains, because if he`s overdue, nobody is going to look for him unless somebody thinks that he`s not returned on time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A massive search is under way at this hour in western Nevada for adventurer Steve Fossett. Thirteen planes are now in the air looking for him over hundreds of miles of rugged terrain. Fossett`s single-engine plane took off at a private airstrip yesterday morning. It has not returned. Fossett is the first man to ever fly around the world without stopping. The billionaire also holds world records for circling the globe by balloon and sailboat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: World-famous adventurer Steve Fossett vanished into thin air. He took off without a flight plan. Nobody knows where he is. This guy has been around the world on planes, trains, you name it, swam the English Channel. But tonight, no one can find Fossett.

Back to Christiane Brown. What are the temperatures night and day out there on the playa?

BROWN: It doesn`t get -- you know, it gets down into probably the 40s about this time of year, I think, you know, mid 80s to 90s during the day. It`s been hotter.

GRACE: OK. That`s not terrible.

Out to Michelle Sigona with "America`s Most Wanted." What else can you tell us, Michelle?

MICHELLE SIGONA, "AMERICA`S MOST WANTED": Well, I can tell you, Nancy, that there`s about 110,000 acres that, really, he could have flown into yesterday, throughout those three hours or more that he was gone. But right now, they`re focusing their efforts on about 600 square miles. Nancy, as you mentioned, 13, 14 aircraft in the air, along with helicopters. There`s ground crews that are searching for him right now. This is a very experienced flyer, and it`s just not like (INAUDIBLE) for him to go missing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST (voice-over): He`s nowhere to be found. At this very moment in Nevada, airplanes and several searchers are looking for adventurer Steve Fossett. He`s the first person ever to circle the world solo in a balloon and the first person to fly around the world by himself without refueling. But yesterday Fossett took off in a plane, and that plane has simply vanished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: As of right now, no honing signal on the aircraft of world adventurer Steve Fossett. There`s a picture of him. He`s been missing over 30 hours now after taking off from a Nevada private runway flying south. Out to the lines, Holly in West Virginia. Hi, Holly.

CALLER: Hey, how are you?

GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?

CALLER: I was wondering if the investigators for Mr. Fossett have asked any of his friends or family about any possible new flight records he`s planned on breaking.

GRACE: Excellent question. To Jon Najarian, he is a friend of Steve Fossett`s. Do you know of any record he was planning to break? He promised he`d keep breaking records.

JON NAJARIAN, FRIEND OF STEVE FOSSETT: Well, and I`m sure he will. What I`d heard was he was going to attempt a glider record in the near future. I`m not even sure which record that might be, Nancy. But that`s what I heard he was going to be doing in South America later this year.

GRACE: So that had nothing to do with his search for a playa?

NAJARIAN: No, I don`t believe so. It sounded more likely that was about those speed records on land.

GRACE: And back to Arthur Volk, aviation attorney, licensed pilot that has flown aircraft just like this one before. What about that emergency transmitter on the plane?

VOLK: Every one of these airplanes has an emergency location transmitter and it goes off in a crash and it transmits continuously on an emergency frequency. So the CAP airplanes who have tuned their radios to that frequency should be able to hear it. Now they may not be close enough to hear it. Sometimes airliners flying over that area can hear it. But it either means that the battery is dead, it wasn`t armed or he didn`t hit the ground hard enough to cause it to go off, which is a good thing.

GRACE: A very good thing. And in light of the fact that we believe he was looking for a playa, a flat, dry riverbed, lakebed, that would suggest a perfect landing condition for him. Out to Mark Novak, joining us tonight. He`s the former NYPD captain and president of Global Security Group. Mark, thank you for being with us tonight. As an investigator, how do you piece together a working timeline in a situation like this?

MARK NOVAK, FORMER NYPD CAPTAIN: Well, the timeline is not too hard to piece together. We know what time he took off. We know when time he was supposed to be back. I think what they`re going to be looking at is obviously try to talk to some of his family, some of his friends. They`re going to want to see where was he going. And they`ve pieced together a lot of this. But as far as the time line goes, it`s pretty straightforward at this point. It`s just a matter of what time he took off and he`s got a four hour window, 3 hour and 40 minute window before he`s be determined to be missing. Quite a large area to be covered in that time.

GRACE: It is a large area. Joining us is Major Jeff Zupon with the Nevada National Guard. Major, thank you for being with us. Just how big is the area and how does someone just literally drop off the radar?

MAJ. JEFF ZUPON, NEVADA NATIONAL GUARD: Well, Nevada is one of those states where most people back East think it`s pretty small. I mean, they think you could drive from Las Vegas to Nevada -- or to Reno and have lunch. But, in fact, it`s one of the largest states in the nation, at least in the continental U.S. And there`s so many basins and ranges that there`s just not enough radar to pick up a small airplane like that and track every single one of them since there`s, you know, a myriad of different air spaces. It`s just something that wouldn`t be possible given the large space of Nevada.

GRACE: And, Major Zupon, how big of an area are they searching?

ZUPON: Well, they`re right now searching about a 600 square mile area. But I know it`s going to expand a little bit beyond that.

GRACE: You know, though, to Richelle Carey, with Headline Prime News, Richelle, with 13 planes in the air, you`re dividing 600 by 13, how long do they plan to search? How much can they do?

RICHELLE CAREY, CNN HN ANCHOR: That`s a really good question, Nancy. But some of the aircraft you would think could cover a lot of ground. One of the planes in particular is a C-130 that actually has a heat-seeking apparatus on it. So you would imagine that could really get a lot of ground covered. And also, some of the planes are Cessnas that the major was describing has a three-person crew, obviously, one of those people being a pilot.

But there`s also an observer in the front seat, another observer in the back seat that are specially trained that do these types of things on a regular basis. And also, there is a helicopter as well and also four ground crews. So, yeah, it seems like there is a huge area to cover but obviously they know what they`re doing. And also, before they get to that specific 600 square mile area that we`re talking about, some of the area is going to be covered twice. And the reason she said that is because they`re talking about ravines and they have the sun factored in. So the type of terrain they`re talking about, as the sun moves, there may be an area that needs to be searched twice because maybe he`s on a different part of the same area that they maybe didn`t get to. So they`ve got to kind of piece it together before they cover the entire area.

So it may seem like it`s a bit redundant but they know exactly the time of terrain they`re covering, Nancy.

GRACE: That`s well over 40 square miles per pilot. I want to go back out to Major Jeff Zupon, 40 square -- over 40 square miles per pilot. I mean, is that even feasible, major?

ZUPON: It`s feasible, especially in that C-130 aircraft that the Nevada National Guard is putting up right now. It could be done, but it`s going to take several hours.

GRACE: OK. Back out to the lines, Ashley in New Mexico. Hi, Ashley.

CALLER: Hi, Nancy. Thank you for taking my call.

GRACE: Thank you for watching, dear. What`s your question?

CALLER: I was wondering if anyone has bothered to check Mr. Fossett`s bank accounts for any weird transactions before his disappearance.

GRACE: Oh, Ashley, you little minx? What about it Christiane Brown, talk show host with KJFK, 1230 a.m. No one is suspecting any foul play or that he would just literally disappear off the map.

CHRISTIANE BROWN, KJFK RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: No. I don`t think so. And I think that that`s speculating in a sensational sort of way. But I think that it is important to say and I haven`t heard it brought up yet that everybody who talks about him says that he was a conservative pilot. Even though he did all of these different wonderful things, it sort of might sound like he was a daredevil.

But according to all of his friends and people who have worked with him, he was a conservative pilot. He wouldn`t have even called himself a risk-taker. In fact, he described himself as a risk-averse person and he doesn`t do any of this for thrills. He says he does it for personal achievement.

GRACE: Well, I don`t know. Let me go out to Dr. Patricia Saunders. Dr. Saunders, he may see himself as risk-averse. But just listen to this, Dr. Saunders. And I know you probably know it by heart. World records in airplane flight, ballooning, sailing, glider, airship flight, cross country skiing, has swam the English Channel, his friend just told us three times. Did the Iditarod, the triathlon in Hawaii, drove in the 24 hour Le Mans sports car race two years. That`s risky.

DR. PATRICIA SAUNDERS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I think the only thing he hasn`t done is break a record in ping-pong. No matter how he sees himself, this guy holds 116 world records in five different sports. We talk about people being adrenaline junkies. It isn`t that people get addicted to the adrenaline per se. It`s the mental state. His conscious experience of it is to achieve, to push the boundaries. But most people fall apart when they get a rush of adrenaline. Some very special people like Steve Fossett really go into an altered state of consciousness. Time slows down. They describe their perception altering and their consciousness expanding, and it`s really hard not to want to go back to that.

GRACE: To Laurie in New York. Hi, Laurie, what`s your question?

CALLER: Nancy, first of all, congratulations on your twins.

GRACE: Thank you.

CALLER: And I just have one question. Did Mr. Fossett have any medical problems that may have affected him during flight?

GRACE: Excellent question. To Michelle Sigona, do we have any idea about that, any medical problem?

MICHELLE SIGONA, "AMERICA`S MOST WANTED": That was one question that I posed just a little while ago, Nancy, to one of the spokespeople. At this point they say there`s no evidence of any medical problems that he was having. Again, he left with a full tank of gas, was expected to be back within three hours. That full tank would have lasted him four to five hours, so there really is no reason -- and also, Nancy, he was due back by 12:00 noon because he was due to take another flight out very shortly after. So these are definitely good questions. Unfortunately, we don`t have specific answers especially to that question right now.

GRACE: Back out to Mary Schiavo, aviation attorney, former inspector general with the Department of Transportation. How difficult of an area is this to search?

SCHIAVO: Well, it`s a difficult area to search. But with the grid system that they described -- the Coast Guard uses a similar one for searching for planes in the ocean. You have a set grid that you follow. And if you do that, you can be assured you covered each and every quadrant. You kind of make a grid map and then once you`ve covered each one you can search the other area as the sun changes. Tough looking for a 27-year-old plane.

GRACE: And to Doug Burns, veteran trial lawyer, he is an accomplished pilot. If it`s discovered that there`s a malfunction on the plane, what happens?

DOUG BURNS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I mean, you`re right. This guy is such a major expert that it boils down to probably some type of maintenance failure or mechanical failure if you think about it. But I like what the last caller said tragically. It could be some type of medical thing. Seriously.

GRACE: Everybody, when we come back, where is 22-year-old Brigham Young university coed Camille Cleverley? Take a look.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): A Brigham Young University student is missing in Provo, Utah. And police are searching for clues in her disappearance. Police say that Camille Cleverley left her apartment with her bike on Thursday. There`s been no word from her since. Police searched bike trails around Provo several times, also talked with friends and acquaintances of the 22-year-old. She would have started classes at BYU today. Flyers with the description of Cleverley are posted throughout Provo.

GRACE: Where is the 22-year-old Brigham Young coed? Out to Sarah Israelsen, staff writer with the "Deseret Morning News." What can you tell us, Sarah?

SARAH ISRAELSEN, "DESERET MORNING NEWS": Well, at this point police are still looking. They sent dogs out this morning to look in the area whereby they thought she might be found. They`re still going off of pictures that they have posted, family members have posted, still kind of hoping that tips might trickle in. They`re going also of a debit card that was used this morning - or Friday morning at 11:00 a.m., in a convenience store in Provo to try to find out if that was used by Camille or would have been used by someone else.

GRACE: To Michelle Sigona with "America`s Most Wanted." A debit card. To use that debit card do you have to have her secret code or is it more like a credit card?

SIGONA: Absolutely, Nancy. I just got off the phone with investigators within the last hour and that`s the same question I asked them, did she use the credit or debit side? He specifically said the debit side, you have to punch in the code. It was either her or someone else who had that personal information to be able to go into that convenience store. But, Nancy, the surveillance cameras didn`t work, unfortunately.

GRACE: Oh! Oh, how many times have we heard that story! The surveillance camera not working. Joining me right now is a very special guest. It is Camille`s brother, David. David, thank you for being with us. So does this mean that someone she knew or someone who had been able to ascertain her secret code to her debit card was using her card as recently as 11:00 a.m.?

DAVID CLEVERLEY, BROTHER OF MISSING BYU STUDENT: Not necessarily because the things that she bought were very typical of what Camille would buy. Apparently it was just five dollars and she bought a pack of doughnuts and two bottles of Fuze. So, you know, very typical of Camille, something like that.

GRACE: You know what, that`s very interesting, David. That was my next question, what was bought. And you would think if someone had stolen or forced away her debit card and gotten her code, they would take out a whole lot of money, they would have used it for other things other than a pack of doughnuts and some drinks.

CLEVERELY: Yeah, exactly. So you kind of wonder about that. But we also think it would be kind of hard to ride on a bike with two bottles of Fuze, since they`re glass. We didn`t know that she had a backpack.

GRACE: Was that one of her favorite drinks, do you know?

CLEVERLEY: Well, it`s a healthy drink. She was pretty athletic. I think it`s something she would definitely pick up at a convenience store.

GRACE: David, when was the last time you saw her? Has she ever gone missing before?

CLEVERLEY: No, she`s never gone missing before. I saw her not this past Saturday but the Saturday before that. We went to my older sister`s house and we just kind of had a little family time there. So .

GRACE: You know, out to the lawyers, Doug Burns, out of New York. Also joining us, Nicole Deborde of Houston, Texas, both veteran trial lawyers. The three of us have covered and handled many missing persons cases. Typically, though, when we get them, they`re at trial. I don`t know, based upon what the brother is telling me, Nicole, that the debit card was only used to buy two drinks and a pack of doughnuts, that doesn`t sound like a thief.

NICOLE DEBORDE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I agree. That is a very positive fact. I like that because it`s very possible that she might have been the person who was making the purchase. Some of the facts obviously that concern me a great deal are the facts I believe the brother brought out earlier in other conferences. But hopefully that is a very good sign.

GRACE: And, Doug, they`re looking for this purple Schwinn as opposed to a car. That`s a lot less identifiable. Many fewer people are going to recognize that.

BURNS: Yeah, I was talking about that earlier with somebody. Of course, there`s no licensing identification. I do want to point out, though, Nancy, that I disagree. You can use a debit card in restaurants and stores without the PIN, seriously. So I`m not so sure .

GRACE: Hold on, David, was this the type that you needed a PIN?

CLEVERLEY: Well, some convenience stores you really don`t need a PIN. Sometimes you can just, you know, slash the card .

GRACE: Michelle, what did you learn? Michelle Sigona?

SIGONA: He`s absolutely right. You can use your debit card in various places, Nancy, whether it`s on the debit or credit side. If you use it on the credit side, you definitely do not need the PIN number but she did indeed have to type in her PIN for this particular purchase.

GRACE: OK. Michelle Sigona reporting with "America`s Most Wanted." Very quickly, CNN "Heroes."

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ORAL LEE BROWN, TEACHER: These are our kids. We should at least take them to a position in their life that they can lead their way. And they can`t do it without an education.

An education can get you everything you want. You can go wherever you want to go. It`s the way out of the ghettos, bottom line.

CLASS: Good morning, Mrs. Oral Brown.

YOLANDA PEEK, FORMER SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: She says, "Give me your first graders who are really struggling and who are most needy. I want to adopt the class and I want to follow the class until they graduate from high school."

And she says that she was going to pay their college tuition.

BROWN: How many of you are going to college?

At the time I was making I think $45,000, $46,000 a year. So I committed $10,000 to the kids. I grew up in Mississippi. I lived off of two dollars a day. That`s what we got, two dollars a day for picking cotton. So I really feel that I was blessed from God. So I cannot pay him back, but these kids are his kids. These kids are -- some of them are poor like I was.

LAQUITA WHITE, FORMER STUDENT: When you ha that mentor like Miss Brown, a very strong person, you can`t go wrong. Because she`s on you constantly every day, "What are you doing? How are you doing?"

BROWN: The world doubted us. I was told that, "Lady, you cannot do it." And I would say, "You know what? These kids are just like any other kids. The only thing, that they don`t have that love and they don`t have that support."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They called me yesterday and told me I was accepted.

BROWN: You`re looking at doctors and lawyers and one president of the United States. When you give a kid an education and they get it up here, nobody or nothing can take it away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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GRACE: To "Headline Prime`s" Glenn Beck. Hi, friend.

GLENN BECK, HEADLINE PRIME: Mexican President Felipe Calderon says, wherever there`s a Mexican, there is Mexico. Yeah, hold the phone here, amigo. Still our country. And there are really only two kind of people here. There are citizens and illegal aliens. Three, actually. And people on vacation. We`ll have more on el presidente`s backward thinking in just a bit.

Then Republican Fred Thompson is set to announce his presidential candidacy this week. Whether he runs or not, does he have the right stuff to win? Stick around, I`ll tell you what I think. And a madrassa in the big apple. The Arab language school opened in New York today. Details on that and so much more next.

GRACE: Where is a missing Brigham Young University coed? I`m going to go back out to her brother, David Cleverley. This is Camille`s brother. David, what more can you tell us? Has she ever been gone from home this long without making contact with the family?

CLEVERLEY: No, she`s never been gone this long. Maybe a couple hours, that`s about it.

GRACE: To Darlene in Canada. Hi, Darlene.

CALLER: Nancy, we love you up here.

GRACE: Bless you for watching, Canada. What`s your question, dear?

CALLER: Have any sex offenders been released lately around where she went missing?

GRACE: Good question. Michelle Sigona, what do we know?

SIGONA: At this point we do not know if any sex offenders have been released. But that`s something investigators are looking into, Nancy. I can tell you that investigators -- I have interviewed more than 40 people that Camille knows. So more than 40 people are being interviewed, including her boyfriend, who is cooperating with investigators.

GRACE: Thank you especially to David Cleverley, her brother, Sarah Israelsen with the "Deseret Morning News" and Michelle Sigona. Let`s stop to remember Army Specialist Eric Salina, 25, Houston, Texas, killed Iraq. Awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and National Defense Service Medal. Loves soccer, basketball, dancing, traveling the world. Leaves behind parents, Domingo and Juanita, sisters Christina and Judy, brother Jerry, best friend Oscar and four-year-old son Anthony. Eric Salinas, American hero. Thank you to our guest but most of all to you for being with us.

Happy sweet 16 birthday to Nick and Zack in Suwannee, Georgia and special good night to friends of the show Sarah, Leeanne and Molly. Aren`t they beautiful! See you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.

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