Crash claims Utahn; 2 survive

With a broken hip and a fractured back, Utahn John Krogh struggled to pull himself away from the wreckage of a fiery Missouri commuter plane crash Tuesday night, his wife told the Deseret Morning News.

The accident claimed 13 lives, investigators said Wednesday.

The only other survivor was another Utahn: Wendy Bonham, 44, of Spanish Fork, Krogh's assistant.

A third Utahn, Clark Ator, 39, of Alpine, was killed. He was Krogh's close friend, former student and medical colleague. Ator was also bishop of his LDS ward.

It took "super-human strength" for Krogh, 68, of Wallsburg, Wasatch County, to pull himself from the wreckage, his wife, Karen, told the Morning News.

Krogh told his wife he felt a bump and thought the plane had hit a tree. A loud crashing noise followed, and flames immediately surrounded the cabin. Krogh escaped through an emergency exit door above the plane's wings.

The Corporate Airlines twin-engine turboprop crashed in a heavily wooded area near Kirksville in north-central Missouri. The 19-seat plane, part of American Airlines' AmericanConnection service, was on a regular flight from St. Louis to Kirksville.

The Utahns were part of a group headed to a medical conference in Kirksville.

Ator was bishop of the LDS Mountainville 1st Ward in Alpine. His death came as a shock to friends and family, who were still relaying the news to other ward members Wednesday afternoon.

"He was a wonderful man, father, physician and a person," said Jesse Hunsaker, president of the Alpine Utah LDS Stake. "It's just going be a real heartbreak for the ward."

The mood was somber in Ator's neighborhood Wednesday. Parents nervously waited for their children to come home to tell them that their beloved bishop had died. One mother asked members of the media to leave the neighborhood to avoid alarming their children.

Local church leaders called a special meeting Wednesday afternoon to coordinate efforts to help Ator's family "get through this troubling time."

"This is difficult for the family," said McKay Pearson, a close friend and first counselor in the LDS ward bishopric with Ator. "It is for any young family to lose their father and husband."

Ator and his wife, Karlene, have seven children, whose ages range from 5 months to 14 years, Pearson said.

Eight people were originally confirmed dead in the crash. Crews continued searching Wednesday for five others, who were subsequently confirmed to have died.