Steve Fossett: A Record-Breaking Adventurer's Final Flight

Steve Fossett set over 100 world records across five sports, circled the globe solo in a balloon, and survived a five-mile plunge into the ocean. A routine Nevada flight in 2007 ended his life.This episode examines the calculating mind behind the feats, a man with no natural athletic gifts who methodically engineered his wealth, his machines, and his own endurance.Building a fortune on commodities clearing fees to fund his recordsSix balloon attempts and the 1998 Coral Sea crashThe unrefueled solo global flights in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyerA crowdsourced satellite search that overwhelmed rescuersThe density-altitude and downdraft crash the NTSB identified