No Apparent Link Between Crashes Two Accidents In Two Days Likely Coincidence, Experts Say

Sun., Jan. 12, 1997

Associated Press

Preliminary results of a federal investigation indicate no apparent connection between two Montana plane crashes that killed three Gillette residents and two Boulder, Colo., men, investigators said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Jan. 5 crash near Wyola, Mont., that killed pilot Jeff Pfau, Gillette’s police chief, and city employee Vicky Lundock.

Investigators also are looking into the crash the next day near Helena that claimed the lives of Gillette architect Chris Hard, pilot Tom Nixon and colleague Rich Davis.

Pfau was piloting a single-engine Piper Cherokee and Hard, Nixon and Davis were flying in a single-engine Piper Comanche. Both planes took off from a Billings, Mont., airport.

NTSB Air Safety Investigator Kurt Anderson of Seattle said there appeared to be no reason to believe the crashes were linked to something that may have happened at the airport.

In Monday’s crash, parts began coming off the aircraft at a high altitude and wreckage was strewn for two miles, Anderson said. In Pfau’s case, the plane went through trees for several hundred feet before slamming into the wall of a canyon south of Yellowtail Dam in Big Horn County, Mont.

“It doesn’t look like there’s any consistency there,” Anderson said. “But we’ll be looking at all of that.”

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