FRONTIER CRASH CLAIMS FIVE NEAR MILES CITY.

3 CREW, 2 PASSENGERS FROM EASTERN MONTANA.

By AP and UPI
Miles City -- A Frontier Airlines DC3 crashed Thursday night killing all five persons aboard as it groped through a snowstorm for an attempted instrument landing at the Miles City Airport.
ED GERHARD of Frontier's Denver office identified the dead as:
Pilot Capt. KEN C. HUBER, 2618 Beth Drive, Billings.
Co-pilot DANIEL H. GOUGH, 2506 Olson Drive, Billings.
MISS DOROTHY REIF, stewardess, based in Billings.
GALE BUSSINGER, Frontier's station manager at Miles City, passenger.
H. SWENSON of Sidney, passenger.
The plane crashed two miles northwest of the airport near Fort Keough Bridge. The Plane, Frontier's Flight 32, had left Billings for Miles City and Sidney at 7:50 p.m.
The pilot, Capt. KENNETH C. HUBER, radioed at 8:48 p.m. that the DC3 was over the airport range marker and would land in 10 minutes.
Airport personnel notified police at 9:20 p.m. they though they saw the plane crash but could not be sure. A fire could be seen northwest of the airport. The plane had been due at Miles City at 8:50 p.m.
Police, sheriff's officers and highway patrolmen who went to the scene reported back there were no survivors in the crumpled wreckage. It was surrounded by a hale of flame from burning fuel.
The plane crashed and burned in a steep ravine of cottonwood trees.
One wing of the plane was found about one half mile from the other wreckage indicating it struck a knoll before coming to rest in the ravine.
There was a low ceiling and a snowstorm was in progress when the crash occurred.
A Denver airline spokesman said the crash was the first in 18 years for Frontier, a period during which 3 1/2 million passengers have been flown.
It was the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in Montana since a Northwest Airlines DC4 crashed into a mountain west of Missoula killing all 12 aboard in the fall of 1962.

The Billings Gazette Montana 1964-03-13

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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!