One Plane Doing Stunts Before Crash

Federal investigators have completed a preliminary report on the Dec. 7 crash of two small planes in the air near Bozeman, but final conclusions could be several months away.

The preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board says one of the pilots, James C. Gier of Bozeman, was seen doing aerial tricks minutes before the crash, but apparently was not performing them when it occurred.

The upper and lower right wings of his biplane caught the tail of a Cessna 206 flown by Burton Huntington of Red Lodge. The two pilots and Huntington’s passenger, John Jardine of Red Lodge, were killed.