Mr. Fossett’s aircraft was discovered Wednesday in a remote area of Inyo National Forest, about 120 miles south of the Nevada ranch where he departed on Sept. 3, 2007. Mr. Fossett, a renowned aviator, had said he was going on a brief flight but never returned, and the transmitter on his aircraft did not send any location signals. At his wife’s request, Mr. Fossett, 63, was declared legally dead in February by a judge in Chicago.

Image Wreckage of Mr. Fossetts plane, a single-engine two-seater, in east-central California. Credit... Mono County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue

Mr. Rosenker said parts of the transmitter had been found, along with other pieces of Mr. Fossett’s plane, in a debris field some 150 feet wide and 400 feet long. Initial indications are that the plane hit a mountain, at an altitude of about 10,100 feet, and then burst into flame, investigators said. There was no sign the plane had been on fire before the crash, Mr. Rosenker said, but the plane’s engine was found 300 feet from the fuselage, which indicated an intense impact.

The wreckage lay about nine miles northwest of Mammoth Lakes, a popular ski village, and about 12 miles from the town’s airstrip. It is an area so remote that it required a 45-minute hike from the nearest path up steep hills, said the director of the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, Gary Derks, who visited the site and led the five-week search last fall for Mr. Fossett. About 30 investigators and other recovery personnel were on the scene, with volunteers and representatives from local sheriffs’ departments camping overnight in frigid temperatures to protect the scene.

Image At a news conference Thursday, Sheriff John Anderson of Madera County showed a map of the crash site. Credit... Kim Komenich/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated Press

The region where the plane wreckage was found had been flown over repeatedly during the search last year, but Mr. Derks said the area was dense, mountainous forest where something as small as a two-seat light aircraft would be easy to overlook.