Guest Features
Lehi History: 1964 plane crash into Utah Lake killed two
Lee Anderson | Lehi Historical Society
Utah Lake has been a source of recreation for over 100 years. It also has seen many tragedies, mostly drownings, but the tragedy in 1964 came from the sky.
On Wednesday, Feb. 12, 1964, Chicago Cubs second basemanKen Hubbs and his best friend, Dennis E. Doyle, decided to make a quick trip from their hometown of Colton, Calif., to see Dennis’ wife and one-month-old child, who were visiting her parents in Provo. They flew in Ken’s new single-engine Cessna 172. They planned to spend the night and be back in Colton by Thursday night so Dennis could be to work Friday morning.
After making their visit, the weather was stormy on Thursday, but the visibility was good when they took off around 10 a.m. No one knows exactly what happened next, but the plane never reached its California destination. Ken didn’t file a flight report, which was recommended but not required at the time. The two men were not noticed to be missing until Friday morning when Dennis didn’t show up for work.
The men were reported missing later that day, and 10 search planes took off at dawn on Saturday from Provo. More searchers were being mobilized in Utah, California, Nevada and Arizona when news came that wreckage from the missing plane had been sighted on Utah Lake just south of Bird Island.
The plane had hit the ice with terrific force at a steep angle. The wings and other wreckage were scattered over a 200-foot radius. The engine and fuselage had punched through about 15 inches of ice which had since frozen over. Recovery operations began that afternoon with three scuba divers from Provo, Paul Penrod, Richard Richhart and Wallace Eklund, searching the cold dark and murky waters under the ice.
Unfortunately, the two bodies were not found in the fuselage and recovery operations had to halt because it was getting late. They resumed the search Sunday morning with a special waterproof floodlight that helped the divers find and recover the bodies.
After piecing together the clues, it was thought that Ken had run into bad weather soon after takeoff and tried to return to the Provo Airport. About an hour after Ken and Dennis took off on Thursday, a small plane matching the description of their missing plane was seen flying very low in a snowstorm near Jericho, Utah.
A little over an hour later, two Fish and Game officers at Utah Lake’s Goshen Bay saw a whiteout snowstorm moving in from the west. During the whiteout, both men heard an explosion on the lake.
Ken had received his pilot’s license just two weeks prior to the accident and was not trained in flying by instruments only. It was thought that he was caught in the whiteout and could no longer see where the horizon was or how close he was to the ground. During such conditions, it is easy for a pilot to become disorientated and fly into the ground, which, tragically, was what the officials figured he did.
The stories of Lee Anderson can be found in the Lehi Historical Society’s Lee Anderson Story Collection at lehihistory.org. This story is ArchivEra #046929.
