| Notes |
- Alamagordo Daily News, Alamagordo, NM, 22 Feb 1971, p. 1, col. F
On McGregor
Lordsburg Men Dead In Crash
Two Lordsburg men who were making their second attempt of the day to push through a storm which swept the area Sunday died in the crash of their light plane Sunday night on McGregor range near Newman.
The bodies of the victims - identified by the sheriff's office in Lordsburg as John Hiser and Clifford Adams — were recovered this morning from the wreckage of their single-engine Navion aircraft.
Members of the recovery party reported the plane was practically demolished in the crash, witnessed on radar by control personnel at the El Paso International Airport.
Federal Aviation Agency officials in El Paso said a search was instituted this morning for the plane, which had been en route from Jal to Lordsburg.
The men were reported to have left Jal Sunday afternoon and became lost after encountering stormy conditions near El Paso. After flying around for some time, they emerged from the storm, returned to Jal to refuel and headed for Lordsburg a second tune.
Again encountering the storm, they became lost again. Controllers at the El Paso airport reported having both radio radar contact with the plane, and were attempting to lead the aircraft into a landing at the El Paso airport when radio contact was lost. A short time later, radar contact was broken, and the plane was assumed down.
The FAA said tV pilot had reported icing conditions shortly before radio contact with the plane was lost.
Civil Air Patrol units flying out of El Paso spotted the crash shortly after daybreak, but it was late morning before ground crews were able to reach the site.
The El Paso Times, El Paso, TX, Tuesday, 22 Feb 1971, p. 1, col. A
Two Lordsburg Men Die In Plane Crash
By BRUCE BISSONETTE
Two Lordsburg, N.M. men died in the crash of a light plane early Sunday night on the southern end of McGregor Range, about 35 miles northeast of El Paso International Airport. The victims were identified as John Paul Hiser, 42, the pilot and owner of the plane, and Clifford Lee Adams, 62, his passenger.
The plane, a 1947 model Navion 205, disappeared from El Paso Radar Approach Control screens while Hiser was executing a left turn. The turn was being made to provide air controllers a positive position of the plane of the radar screen and to distinguish it from other aircraft. A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said Hiser had requested assistance from the controllers in determining his exact position on a flight from Wink, Tex., to Deming, N.M.
An FAA spokesman said the plane continued to turn even after its position had been spotted, remaining in the turn until it disappeared at 7:08 p.m. Moments earlier, when he requested assistance in determining his position, Hiser had reported his altitude as 9,600 feet above sea level, or 3,000 feet above the highest mountain peaks in the area. But icing was reported at 9,000 ft.
Group 18 of the Civil Air Patrol, based at Biggs Field and commanded by Maj. Wanda Creamer, was alerted by the FAA at 8 p.m. A full search was ordered at 11:20 p.m by the United States Air Force's Central Air Rescue Recovery Center, Kansas City, Kan., under which the CAP serves. Ground units of the local CAP were dispatched immediately and an air search began at dawn.
The wreckage was found at 7:20 a.m. by CAP 2 Lt. Kenneth Robertson and CWO Hubert H. Overton Jr., who headed the air search. The plane was scattered over a 300-yard area, the main wreckage coming to rest on a dirt ranch road. The spiraling plane had narrowly missed a hill.
El Paso ham radio operators Fred Walker and Ron Price manned their radios throughout the search to maintain contact with the ground units. An Army medical team arrived by helicopter a few minutes after the plane was found, followed shortly by the CAP ground units. The bodies were removed to William Beaumont General Hospital.
Two aircraft flying near El Paso at the time the plane disappeared were diverted to the general area in an early search attempt but the pilots were forced to cancel due to severe turbulence, snow and icing conditions. Later an Army helicopter pilot, dispatched from Biggs Field, reported heavy ground fog in the area.
An FAA spokesman Monday said Hiser was a student pilot and that no record could be found that he had been issued a private pilot certificate.
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1939 - 1971 (32 years)
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