(CBS/AP) -- A small plane carrying aviation adventurer Steve Fossett has been missing since Monday night, federal officials said Tuesday.
Fossett took off in the single engine Bellanca at 8:45 a.m. Monday at a private airstrip on a ranch in western Nevada and did not return as scheduled. A friend reported him missing, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Maryland.
"The Civil Air Patrol is looking for him. One problem is he doesn't appear to have filed a flight plan," Gregor told The Associated Press.
The search was being coordinated by the Air Force's Rescue Coordination Center in Langley, Virginia, Gregor said.
"They are working on some leads, but they don't know where he is right now," Gregor said
Fossett, 63, made the first solo nonstop, non-refueled circumnavigation of the world in 67 hours in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, according to the Record-Courier, which first reported his disappearance.
In 2002 he was the first person to solo around the world in a balloon. He holds several world soaring records, according to his Web site, stevefossett.com.
He was in Sparks in August preparing a jet racer to break the land speed record at Bonneville Flats, according to the Record-Courier.
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