In brief: Pilot in crash suspected of flying drunk
SANDPOINT – A pilot who crashed his twin-engine plane at the airport in Sandpoint is suspected of flying under the influence of alcohol, according to authorities in the north Idaho resort town.
Nobody was injured Monday when the plane left the runway and smashed into a chain link fence along the airport’s perimeter, but the airport’s primary navigation system was damaged.
Sandpoint police Chief Corey Coon told the Bonner County Daily Bee that pilot Donald Muirhead, 55, was arrested on suspicion of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The crash is also being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Authorities say Muirhead and two other unidentified passengers flew from Provo, Utah, to Sandpoint on Monday morning.
SilverWing Flight Services manager Jason Hauck, who was contracted to oversee the accident cleanup, said the Aerostar 602P crashed through the airport’s primary navigational equipment, which is used by almost all pilots to land in darkness or bad weather. Replacement could take months, he said.
Fight over heiress’ will ends with settlement
NEW YORK – A feud over how an enigmatic heiress meant to bequeath a $300 million fortune made in Montana copper mines and the beginnings of Las Vegas was settled Tuesday, with a deal that mainly benefits arts charities and her distant relatives.
A nurse who once stood to inherit as much as $30 million from Huguette Clark will instead have to give back more than $5 million received during Clark’s lifetime, and a lawyer and an accountant whose work for Clark came under question won’t get bequests that went to them in a disputed will.
The settlement was filed in court and got a judge’s approval Tuesday. Word of a pact emerged over the weekend, as a likely two-month trial loomed over the true intentions of a reclusive woman who died at 104 and signed two starkly different wills within six weeks when she was 98.
“This result is a fair result,” Manhattan Surrogate’s Court Judge Nora Anderson said.
Clark died in 2011, leaving no close relatives. Her father, U.S. Sen. William A. Clark, made his wealth from mining and the establishment of Las Vegas, among other ventures.
In one of the biggest bequests, the deal gives a newly created arts foundation about $100 million.