from the Calgary Herald, August 10th edition, front page and continuing on B3:

 

 

Two Dead in Crash of Homebuilt Plane

 

A small homemade plane on a flight from Calgary to Grand Prairie crashed late Tuesday about 60 kilometres northwest of Calgary, killing both occupants.  Two people are dead after a small plane spiralled out of a cloudy sky into a field west of Didsbury Tuesday evening.

 

The U.S. home-built plane was flying from Calgary to Grande Prairie when it disappeared from radar at the Edmonton Air Control Centre, said Yvon Larose, an air controller with the search and rescue centre in Trenton, Ont.

 

"It was starting to circle and its speed was bleeding off," said Larose.  "It could have been mechanical, it could have been medical, we don't know"

 

The search and rescue centre dispatched a Hercules from Winnipeg and a Griffin from Cold Lake at 7:30 p.m., but the planes never left the tarmac.

 

Both were stood down when the word came in that a STARS air ambulance from Calgary had reached the site and found both pilot and passenger dead.

 

Didsbury Fire, EMS and RCMP arrived on scene shortly after 9:30 p.m.

 

"It was really a joint effort to find this site," said Lance Stephenson, public information officer for STARS.  "It all came together fairly quickly.  Unfortunately, the outcome wasn't so good."