Pilot, Passenger Killed in Crash

A newspaper photographer and an Idaho man were killed Thursday when the newsman’s aerobatic plane crashed on Frankish Peak, authorities reported.

Pilot Bob Duricka, 41, of West Covina, and his passenger, John Farmer, also 41, of Montpelier, Ida., apparently died instantly, San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies said.

Joe Blackstock, managing editor of the San Gabriel Valley Daily Tribune, said Duricka apparently was taking Farmer, a technician for the Warner Color Corp. of Goleta, for a brief sightseeing flight before reporting for work.

Duricka owned the single-engine Citabria, which was based at Cable Airport in Upland.

Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Bryant said the plane struck the mountainside shortly before 8 a.m. at the 4,100-foot level, about seven miles north of here. Bryant said the wreckage, which did not burn, was spotted from the air about 2:45 p.m. by Duricka’s brother-in-law, who also is a pilot.

The National Transportation and Safety Board will investigate the accident, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

Friends said Duricka was an experienced aerobatic pilot. He had worked for the Tribune from 1965 to 1980, and after a stint at free-lancing, returned to the paper in 1984.

“Bob loved two things--photography and flying,” Blackstock said.