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Show Wrecked Plane, Dead Pilot Found North0f Delta Clark Huff, government trapper from Fillmore, ended a three-weeks three-weeks search for the missing pilot, Carl Nelson, civilian air patrol courier, lest since March 20, says the Millard County Chronicle, published pub-lished at Delta. iMr. Huff was out in the sandhills sand-hills almost straight east of Wood-row Wood-row when he noticed an object which he took to be another man on horseback. He rode over to pass the time of day and found when he came closer that it was the I missing plane and pilot. j The missing plane had been on i a routine flight from Salt Lake j City to Cedar City, and had not (been heard from until Mr. Huff found it. The plane was located about six miles due north from Delta, and was almost three miles straight east of the Desert Wells. Mr. Huff came back to Delta to notify Deputy Sheriff Jack Bennett, Ben-nett, and a party was quickly organized or-ganized to go out to the plane. The first party consisted of Bennett, Ben-nett, Henry Forster, James Nickle, Frank S. Beckwith and Olaf Dek-fter. Dek-fter. Bennett made a preliminary investigation to establish the identity iden-tity of the plane and the group returned re-turned to town. The plane had apparently landed land-ed with" considerably force, smash, ing onei. wing completely, and breaking the tail assembly off just back of the seat. The one good wing was partly shoved into the i sand and the tail assembly had struck into the sand, fins down so that the open end was pointed straight up. The pilot was face down on the wing with the tail fuselage pinning his leg to the wing edge. The pilot had apparently lived for some time after the crash as he had removed his goggles, gloves and scarf and had used the scax-f to wipe the blood from his face. His pistol was also removed from (Continued on last pare) CPT Plane Crash (Continued rrora page ) its holster, but had not been fired. Both of his legs were broken, and he had a large crushed area on one shoulder blade. He had bled i profusely. - Before leaving Delta on the first trip Bennett had notified Salt Lake 'that the plane had been ! found. A'bout three o'clock three ! CAP planes from Salt Lake; brought Major Joe Bergin, Howard Harris and John Lerom.. inspec-j tors, and other CAP officials to investigate the cause of the crash. The dead pilot's brother, J. Elmer Nelson,- also accompanied the of-1 ficials. The investigation will continue con-tinue for some time. Unofficial observation leads to the theory that the plane went into in-to a spin. It looked as though one of the wings had struck the ground in two spots before crumpling crump-ling up as the ground was lightly creased in two places. After crumpling the wing, the tail had broken off and the motor was partly buried in the soft sand-From sand-From the damage to the plane and the distance parts of the plane were thrown it looked as though it had landed at high speed. The running gear was' not badly damaged, dam-aged, leading to the theory that he had made no attempt to land. The plane landed going a northwesterly north-westerly direction, leading directly away from the course he should have been on had he been in control, con-trol, and going to the Delta air. port. It was easy to see why the plane had been so hard to see from the air as so little of it showed. The one wing was completely gone, the other was partly buried in the sand, as also was the motor. The tail assembly was sticking up so that the whole wreck was a very small object from the air-Mr. air-Mr. Nelson's watch and the plane's clock had stopped precisely precise-ly at 2:01 p.m., just one minute after he had been scheduled to arrive ar-rive at the Delta airport. The body was taken to Delta. Probable cause of the crash was laid to bad weather, but only three days before the Salt Lake-Cedar Lake-Cedar City flight, Nelson had J amazed residents of Draper by I easily maneuvering his plane to a j landing on the highway to avoid tipping over in mud in a field dur- j ing a storm. The Culver Cadet type of plane was equipped only with a receiv-incr receiv-incr radio set and could not have radioed its position, investigators said. Nelson had piloted the plane 1 I for COO flying hours and as a second lieutenant was rated among the top fliers in the Utah CAP group. He had been a member of the organization since 1940 and was currently flying courier service ser-vice for the government. Active in the search for the flier were 30 planes and more than 300 men, who covered an area of nearly 30,000 miles during the 21 -day search for the pilot, including a two-day intensive ; search of the area surrounding . Milford. i V |