This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Birdseye, Utah County • One man was killed and another man was in critical condition after a single-engine airplane crashed during an attempted emergency landing late Thursday morning on U.S. 89 near the Utah-Sanpete county line.
Utah County sheriff's Lt. Yvette Rice said the crash occurred about 10:25 a.m. near mile post 304, about 20 miles north of Fairview, killing passenger Gerald Wilson, 50, of South Jordan.
The aircraft appeared to have clipped power lines and flipped, crashing on its back just off the edge of the road on a parcel of farmland near the town of Birdseye. No other vehicles were involved.
Utah Valley emergency dispatchers had been notified by the Spanish Fork Municipal Airport control tower personnel that at 10:25 a.m. the pilot of the Cessna 172 Skyhawk had called in a "May Day," reporting fire in the cockpit. The pilot, 66-year-old Nicholas Soter, of South Jordan, said he intended to make an emergency landing on the highway.
"Almost simultaneously to that, the Utah Highway Patrol office in Price reported receiving a call from a ham radio operator on the scene of a reported plane crash at the same location," Rice said.
UHP troopers and sheriff's deputies confirmed Wilson was dead at the scene and Soter was in critical condition. He was flown by helicopter to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo.
The men were confirmed to have taken off earlier Thursday from Spanish Fork and had been expected to return later in the day. They work for a company that maps the ground with radar, which is what they were doing at the time of the crash, Rice said.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said the crash of the four-seat aircraft would be jointly investigated by the Utah County Sheriff's Office the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board.
It was expected to be several weeks before a preliminary cause is released.
The highway was closed for several hours while the wreckage was cleared and Rocky Mountain Power crews secured lines. The highway had reopened by 1:30 p.m.
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