Plane Stunts End In Death Of Pilot, 51 Newcomer’s Plane Struck Power Line, Caught Fire

Martin B. Mills spent the Fourth of July weekend buzzing his small airplane over the rooftops of St. Maries.

He came so close to some houses that residents called the Sheriff’s Department.

But by Sunday night, Mills’ airplane had been reduced to a mangled hulk of charred aluminum. And Mills, a 51-year-old North Idaho resident, had been killed.

“It looked just like something from a movie,” said Kregg Hoyt, a 13-year-old Rathdrum, Idaho, boy who watched Mills’ airplane plummet to earth in a fireball. “I was in shock.”

Mills and his single-engine Grumman American Tiger crashed about nine miles northeast of St. Maries just off the St. Joe River Road about 5:30 Sunday night.

Federal Aviation Administration investigators spent Monday combing through the wreckage. The blackened wings lay sprawled in the middle of a scorched circle of field grass. A tire had rolled off by itself. Much of the rest of the plane was so burned it was unrecognizable.

Mills had moved from South Lake Tahoe, Calif., to St. Maries about two weeks ago, said Tom Harns, manager of the St. Maries airport.

After making several trips back and forth to California, Mills returned to St. Maries on Wednesday in his four-seater airplane.

The next day - the Fourth of July - several concerned residents called the Sheriff’s Department to report that an airplane was flying over town at low altitudes, said Benewah County Sheriff Rodney Thormahlen.

Thormahlen said he believes it was Mills.

“He was doing stunts with his plane, flying real low - within a hundred feet of houses,” Thormahlen said. People watched the pilot perform aerobatics such as rolling his airplane, the sheriff said.

Deputies tried to get in touch with Mills at the airport where he kept his plane, but weren’t able to find him, Thormahlen said.

Mills continued to fly low around town and through the St. Joe River valley during the weekend. Campers staying along the river saw him whisking over the fields and shooting up along the mountainside, said Hoyt, who spent the weekend in his family’s cabin.

“He was within 60 feet of the water,” Thormahlen said. “Your guess is as good as mine what he was doing.”

Airplanes are supposed to fly no lower than 500 feet in sparsely populated areas and at least 1,000 feet in populated areas, according to FAA regulations

About 4 p.m. Sunday, deputies were told over their radios that an airplane again was flying low over town, said Deputy Dean Salisbury.

An hour and a half later they would be called to the crash site.

Mills was flying through the river valley next to a boat launch and campground when his airplane struck a power line that crosses the river, said Charlie Myers, the campground host.

A power pole snapped in half and the airplane apparently caught on fire.

Hoyt was standing outside the family cabin when he first heard the rushing noise of flames. The boy looked up and saw the airplane sailing down the valley like a flying torch.

“Flames were coming from the wings and the tail was just a big ball of fire,” he said.

Hoyt said it looked like Mills was trying to land the airplane in a field next to the road when he hit another power line.

“It tagged the wire with a wing and spun around,” Hoyt said.

The airplane slammed nose first into the ground, “Then it exploded,” Hoyt said.

Thormahlen was staying a couple of miles down the river when the power went out. Witnesses rushed to the nearby campground and asked the host to call for help.

They could not reach Mills.

“There was nothing anyone could have done,” Hoyt said frowning.

Mills’ body was badly burned, said Art Jones, manager of the FAA’s flight standards office in Spokane.

An autopsy was performed Monday but results are not expected for at least several days. FAA investigators will file a report to the National Transportation Safety Board in three to six months. An official cause of the crash should be determined in nine to 12 months, Jones said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color); map of crash site

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Winda Benedetti Staff writer Staff writer Rich Roesler contributed to this report.