By Alastair Macdonald
Alastair Macdonald is Reuters Bureau Chief for Israel andthe Palestinian territories, based in Jerusalem. From 1995 to1999 he covered the former Soviet Union as a Reuterscorrespondent in Moscow.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Steve Fossett, declared dead onFriday five months after he went missing while flying inNevada, was no stranger to lonely exploits in out-of-the-wayplaces.
The American millionaire aviator, sailor, balloonist,record-breaker and all-round modern-day adventurer had friendsin some unlikely spots.
A decade ago, a muddy field in southern Russia was where Iran into him. He stood alone on the freezing Russian steppe,and while the world slept off New Year festivities, he surveyedthe deflated wreckage of his latest attempt to become the firstman to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon.
He was smiling. Irrepressibly.
It could be said Steve Fossett could afford to smile,having banked his millions from a career in Chicago's financialmarkets and turned to indulging his passions for speed,endurance and round-the-world records.
However, he might have been forgiven for losing thetrademark schoolboy grin at that moment in early January 1998.
He had touched down just short of violent Chechnya, whereforeigners then risked kidnapping and death. The localgovernor, clinging to a Soviet-era suspicion of foreigners, wasthinking of throwing the hapless balloonist in jail forentering Russia without a visa.
He was surrounded by journalists, who had stumbled blearilyin the mud after a hasty late-night flight from Moscow, alertedto the lone flyer's emergency landing.
Yet the energy and enthusiasm of the man were infectious.
He bounded around, vigorously salvaging equipment from hisballoon "Solo Spirit". He was 53 then, yet showed no sign offive almost sleepless days aloft, during which he had at onepoint to climb out of his gondola to fix a fault.
He refused to dwell on his setback and bubbled insteadabout his plans for another attempt -- unselfishly, he spoke ofhis hopes for rivals' bids to beat him to the prize of a worldfirst.
"MY FIRST AMERICAN"
Fossett seemed to charm all around him, officials andfarmers alike. The solitary adventurer had soon assembled ateam of willing local helpers and bureaucrats breaking offtheir New Year holidays to speed his passage home.
At one stage, women rode up on horseback to the landingsite, offering vodka and food.
His expensive rivalries with fellow wealthy adventurerssuch as Richard Branson could scarcely have seemed more remotefrom the lives of the Russians of the Krasnodar region, whowere struggling then to survive the collapse of communist-eracollective farming.
Having descended on them from the skies, Fossett posed forphotographs with the farm workers who had helped him bring hismassive craft under control -- an object of curiosity whoseall-American can-do spirit seemed to win over those who methim.
"He's the first American I've ever seen in the flesh,"giggled one grandmother to the watching journalists.
For us, it was the end of a long day in slush-covered mudand our thoughts were turning to hot baths and warm beds. ForFossett, getting home meant cross-country ski marathons: "Andthen the sailing season starts..."
He set dozens of records in those fields as well as in theair. He did finally go around the world non-stop in a balloon-- not the first to do so, but the first to do it alone.
As Branson, his partner in numerous exploits said shortlyafter Fossett disappeared in September, if anyone could survivecoming down alone in a plane in the wilds of the American West,it was Steve Fossett.
Sadly, it seems that was not to be.
(Editing by Sara Ledwith)
