Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 39

The Rajneesh had several small planes for their use, and, from what I understand, a couple of good pilots.

One night, mid-spring, I received a call that a small aircraft had crashed just east of Antelope. It was believed to be one of the Rajneesh planes as that was the route they took to fly into the ranch.

We had deputies responding to the scene. I decided I would also go.

The plane was flying at night. The pilot had misjudged where he was relative to the hill; the pilot was just a couple of feet too low when the plane hit the ridge of the hill.

The plane, pilot and passenger were then flung onto the top of the hill.

The first deputies on the scene were given some off-road vehicles by some of the ranchers, to use to drive to the crash scene. It was a mile or so out of town and very steep terrain to the site.

It is not known exactly how fast the plane was flying; we do know the plane flew into the hill at a high rate of speed. Planes are flimsy and not made to withstand crashes, especially one like this.

The deputies arrived at the scene – which encompassed several square yards as the debris flew all over. The plane was demolished.

The plane was not the only thing demolished; the two people in the plane were also destroyed – beyond recognition. People, as the plane, are not made to withstand this kind of trauma.

One of the deputies obtained the wallet of the pilot which contained his identification. They also found the identification of the passenger.

We left a deputy at the scene until the FFA investigators could come in and do their investigation.

The next morning the remains of the two people were taken into The Dalles.

While we were pretty sure these were the right names, we had learned that the Rajneesh were not always honest with us, so we had to take steps to get as good an identification as possible.

Someone talked to the people at the airport the plane flew out of and they knew the two people getting into the plane, confirming the names on the identifications. Dental records would be attained etc. but we felt we had enough information to contact family.

One of the things we have been taught in death investigations is that it is best for the family if the family can view the body – for identification but also so they can get closure. It can be very difficult for the family to mentally accept the death of their loved one and not seeing the body can be problematic for them.

For many it causes a great deal of mental anguish and pain if they can't get that closure.

But there are exceptions; this was one of them.

We met with the wife and a couple of other family members in our meeting room. The wife had been told, by the mortician, that she should not see the remains. She had tentatively confirmed who he was by his ring, but she wanted to see her husband's body.

She wanted our help to get him to let her see her husband. As gently as possible, the sergeant told her that she should remember the husband as he was - the body was not recognizable. It took time, but she eventually accepted his advice.

We will never know why the pilot chose to fly to the ranch so late at night, well after sunset. We were told that he was their best pilot and knew the approach better than anyone else.

This wasn't like flying into a major airport. Antelope only had a few houses, the lighting was negligible. The area he was flying into was like a black hole, no light at all.

The landing strip was surrounded by hills, the air currents and the narrow approach getting into the ranch was tricky, the pilot knew that. There were no landing lights to guide him unto the runway.

When he hit the hill it was at night and he could not see it. Since the airstrip was not lighted, we are not sure how he could gauge the landing.

From everything we learned he was a good pilot, dedicated and safe. It didn't and still doesn't make sense that he flew to the ranch that night instead of waiting for the next morning.

It was a tragic incident that just compounded the local peoples' concerns about what was happening in and around the ranch.

How important was the trip to cause him to throw caution to the wind to get his passenger to the ranch? We weren't told; we never found out.