Three killed in Tooele County plane crash

STOCKTON, Tooele County — Three men died Saturday when a firefighting plane crashed near Stockton.

All three people onboard — pilot Tom Risk, 66, of Littleton, Colo., and crew members Mike Flynn, 59, of Alamogordo, N.M., and Brian Buss, 32, Alberton, Mont. — were killed, the Tooele County Sheriff's Office reported.

The plane went down around 10 a.m. about one mile east of the Stockton Pass in the Oquirrh Mountains.

The crew members for Neptune Aviation of Missoula, Mont., were bound for southern New Mexico to help fight a 19,000-acre wildfire, said Dan Ware, a spokesman for the New Mexico Forestry Division.

"While we must pause to mourn their loss, within the wildland community we must also honor them by continuing to fight fires to protect our communities," state forester Arthur Blazer said.

The wildfire, 20 percent contained, was threatening a home, several outbuildings and a power distribution line, officials said.

Neptune's ground safety and security coordinator, Miek Pfau, said he could confirm only that the company lost an aircraft.

"The fire aviation community lost good people and a valuable resource today and they will be missed," said Jennifer Myslivy, a New Mexico-based fire mitigation and education specialist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Tooele County Search and Rescue crews began looking for a possible downed plane near Stockton after a local resident reported hearing a low-flying plane followed by what sounded like a crash, according to Sheriff Frank Park.

Initially, the search was hampered by low visibility due to low clouds and rain.

About 11:15 a.m., the sheriff's office learned through sources in Idaho that an airplane was reported missing. The plane had departed from Missoula, Mont., and had been headed for Alamogordo, N.M. Deputies say the men were transporting the plane from Missoula to Alamogordo.

About 1 p.m., the clouds lifted and the crash site became visible. The debris field was more than 150 yards long, Park said. About that same time, searchers confirmed the plane was the one reported missing.

Search-and-rescue teams had been conducting training exercises at the Five Mile Pass area southwest of Stockton. They used off-road vehicles to reach the crash site, Park said.

The plane was described as a P2V Neptune, a former military-type airplane developed during the Korean War. That type of twin-engine plane is commonly used to fight fires.

In September 2008, a P2V Neptune crashed while fighting a fire near Lake Tahoe in Nevada, killing all three people on board, including Utahn Calvin Wahlstrom, 61, from Huntsville. At the time, it was at least the third time a P2V owned by Neptune was involved in a fatal crash while fighting wildfires on government contract over the past 15 years. Two men were killed when one crashed near Missoula in 1994, and two other men died in a crash near Reserve, N.M., in 1998.

Deputies and search and rescue crews retrieved the victims from the crash site and were working late Saturday afternoon to bring the bodies down from the mountainside. That task was made difficult by low clouds, rain and steep terrain.

Tooele County Sheriff�s Lt. Herman Herrera said Sunday that deputies had transported investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board to the site of the crash on Sunday, as well as representatives from Neptune Aviation.

E-mail: lindat@desnews.com