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Officials Say Fossett Died Instantly

Investigators say it's clear from the wreckage of Steve Fossett's plane that he must have "died instantly."They spotted the wreckage late yesterday in California's rugged Sierra Nevada, just over a ye

Investigators say it's clear from the wreckage of Steve Fossett's plane that he must have "died instantly."

They spotted the wreckage late yesterday in California's rugged Sierra Nevada, just over a year after the wealthy adventurer vanished on a solo flight.

Today, they confirmed that it was the plane Fossett was flying.

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Madera County Sheriff John Anderson says most of the plane's fuselage disintegrated on impact.  

Anderson: It appeared to me just looking at the pictures that it was a head-on crash into the side of a mountain, into a rock. The plane moved up in an upward direction for a hundred feet or so and disintegrated.

He says the engine was found several hundred feet away.

Investigators haven't found any human remains in the wreckage.

Anderson says remains sometimes aren't found for days -- and sometimes they're never found.

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The National Transportation Safety Board says it will be weeks or months before there's a "better understanding of what happened."