September 2019 - Ruth, Jonathan, Conrad, Fredric explored the site of Darlis' plane crash.
PHOTOS of trip/Summary Photos. PHOTOS of Darlis.
Arizona Pilgrimage
September 1-2, 2019
Schedule:
September 1, Sunday: Gathering at the home of Glen and Cheryl Slabaugh.
September 2, Monday: Trip to Greens Peak in east-central Arizona to accident site.
September 1:
Conrad came up from Tucson on Sunday and met Fredric at the Phoenix airport. Ruth and Jonathan had flown to Las Vegas the day before and drove down to Phoenix that morning. For Fredric and Conrad, it was a quick trip, Ruth and Jonathan were beginning a time of vacation in SW Utah.
We gathered together at 1 PM for a barbeque at the home of Glen and Cheryl Slabaugh’s (1433 W. Summit Pl., Chandler, AZ 85224). Glen is the older brother to Roy Slabaugh, the pilot of the plane. They were gracious hosts. They have 5 adult children and 12 grandchildren.
Glen was our primary point of contact as we made plans for our trip. We were able to get his name from his father Owen’s online obituary. Mother had remembered Owen’s name. The obituary had all the names of Roy’s five siblings. Ruth then did an internet/Facebook search to obtain some likely addresses, and of the three letters that we sent out, Glen was the one who responded. During the months leading up to this trip Glen took our visit very seriously and made every effort to be sure that it was successful. We are grateful for that.
Owen and Edna Slabaugh (Owen died 8-10 years ago, Edna died Nov. 2018) were Roy Slabaugh’s parents. Owen and Edna’s children: Donna (Dale Swartz), Glen (Cheryl), Roy, Phil (Rachel), Dru (Dave Corbin), Dawn (Charlie Kauffman). Donna and Glen live in Phoenix, Dru and Dawn live in Anchorage, Alaska, Phil divides his time between Tucson and Anchorage.
As we pulled up to their house in a Phoenix cul de sac on a warm afternoon (106), we saw that there were quite a number of cars parked out in front and realized that this would be a sizeable gathering.
In addition to Glen and Cheryl there were:
Donna (Roy’s oldest sister) and Dale Swartz.
Menno and Martha Coblentz (Menno was a close friend to Roy, served as an adult coordinator of Roy’s church group, grew up Amish in Indiana, married Martha who is El Salvadoran. They spent a number of years in Honduras with Eastern Mennonite Missions before settling in Phoenix.) On being introduced, Menno said to me with a straight face, “Hi, I’m Menno. They named the church after me.”
Roger Esch (close friend of Roy, in the same church young adults group) and his wife Sandy. They live in Albuquerque, New Mexico but also spend part of their year in Phoenix. Roger and Roy were in the same young adults’ church group and were long time friends. Roy was to be the best man in Roger’s wedding, planned for January 5, 1979. The accident happened on December 22, 1978.
Mark Gaffen, next door neighbor/close friend to Glen and Cheryl.
Luke and Ingrid Slabaugh and their two young sons. Luke is the oldest of Glen and Cheryl’s children
Roy Slabaugh, Glen’s nephew, visiting from Alaska. Roy is named after his uncle Roy.
We enjoyed a simple lunch together. BBQ chicken, potatoes, a vegetable, salad, dessert.
The four who were on the plane (Darlis, Joe and Steph Guhr (fellow MVSers from Kansas) and Roy) were part of a young adult church group. This group seems to have played an important aspect of their lives in 1978 and also had a role in the search response to the accident. The group was based at Trinity Mennonite Church (the main anchor church for the MVS unit) and also included participants from Grace Mennonite Church (Roy’s church). The group numbered about 30-35 and was comprised of college aged/early twenties young adults, a number of whom had moved to Phoenix for 1W service or MVS. A number of those who we met during this weekend had been linked as friends through this group. We imagined the impact that this sudden loss of four of their members would have had on such a group of young persons.
This group would get together weekly for activities, often at the home of Gail and Gladys Buckwalter, the assistant/youth pastors at Trinity (who had no children and had a swimming pool). We can assume that those on the plane were often at these gatherings together during the fall of 1978.
Ned Richer co-owned the plane with Roy. Ned and Roy were planning to start a business together, an air transport service. They co-owned several small planes in addition to the Piper that went down. After the accident, Glen said that Ned went on to become a commercial pilot. Ned was unable to make it to our gathering because he was to meet his daughter’s future in-laws that day.
Menno Coblentz and Ned had traveled to the accident site in early August 2019 in preparation for our visit. They were able to confirm the location of the crash site. They wanted to be sure that the site was identified clearly in advance. Ned placed a pile of stones at the site so that we wouldn’t miss it. [We noted that no one we talked with in Phoenix had re-visited the crash site since June 1979 when the site was found.]
Menno and Ned had both been parts of various groups that traveled to the Greens Peak area during December and January after the crash, hoping to locate it. They also visited the site in June 1979 after the wreckage had been located. Menno said that many in the church young people’s group went on a number of searching trips just after the accident. They searched along the route of the flight in the areas where the crash might have occurred. They had an idea of the location and were, as a group, serious about finding the plane, even though it was a daunting prospect (the official report says that there was 8 feet of snow in the area at the time of the accident).
Menno recalled one of the trips specifically. The group had fanned out over an expanse of land, and a sudden snowstorm/blizzard came up and they all had to seek shelter in a cabin to wait out the storm. (Menno’s son, Jeremy, who we met the next day and was 10 years old at the time, remembered how they built an igloo during this storm.)
Now that the crash site is known, Menno estimates that their searches during those early days were putting them within about ¼ to ½ mile of the site. They were fairly close.
On one of the trips there (January 1979) Menno recounted an exchange they had with some of the local residents in a store/diner near the crash site. He and perhaps Ned and some others were there, talking about the crash, the search for the plane, etc. They noted that the forecast for that day/night of the flight had been for the weather to be clear. Then apparently someone in the back of the store spoke up and said that, no, there was a fairly brief but intense storm that blew up around 8:00 that evening, that kind of quickly came and went. Their thought was that this storm may have been what the plane, unexpectedly, flew into.
Of note, the official accident report notes that the skies were clear, a few scattered clouds. However turbulence was moderate to severe, estimated wind speed 34 knots (39 mph). Air temperature was 52 degrees.
The search attempts involved many dedicated people and was extensive. The Civil Air Patrol was heavily involved (in the week following the accident the CAP made more than 200 search flights). An official in the CAP named Colonel Apple was the main point of contact for our family in Ithaca. As the weeks and months went by without finding the plane, he would let our family know that the CAP pilots were still looking.
Edna, Roy’s mother, had a brother-in-law who flew small airplanes also. This brother in law flew in from Ohio in his own plane to join the search.
Those that we spoke with at the Sunday gathering confirmed that the air search remained quite intense for some time. They said that the CAP put out word for all pilots (not just CAP pilots) who fly that route to look for evidence of the crash. Menno said these private plane would as a routine look down when they flew over that area to see if they could see anything. The pilot who finally sighted the reflection of the sun off of the metal in June 1979 was a private pilot flying a small plane and had been alerted to the search.
Donna Swartz, the eldest in the family, remembered that her mother Edna went with Roy to see the group off on the evening of the plane’s departure from Scottsdale, a Phoenix suburb. Donna noted that this was unusual for Edna to see her son off in this way on his one of his flights. Donna also said that over the years Edna felt some added responsibility or heaviness over the accident given that her son Roy had been the pilot.
Roy seems to have been a very capable young man. Donna noted that Roy had been “high school sports state champion”. We asked which sports and Donna said, “All of them.” He must have been quite an athlete! Menno told a story to illustrate Roy’s abilities. One time Roy learned that a relative was going to rent an augur to dig a ditch maybe 60 feet long and 4 feet deep. Roy asked how much it would be to rent the augur, “$110” and Roy said that he would dig the ditch for $100, and he proceeded to do it the next day.
After this gathering on Sunday the four of us (Jonathan, Fredric, Conrad, Ruth) drove to Resthaven Cemetery in Glendale to visit Darlis’ grave. The gravestone plaque has all four names engraved. The site appeared to be well cared for. It reads:
Roy Slabaugh
1954-1978
Darlis R. Clemens
1959-1978
Joe D. and Stephanie J. Guhr
1957-1978
From there we drove the 3 ½ hours through beautiful desert and canyon scenery up into the mountains of eastern Arizona to the town of Show Low where we stayed the night at the Hampton Inn. It was much cooler, maybe 60 degrees, at the higher elevation of 8000 feet.
September 2
Four of the Phoenix group drove up on Monday morning to meet us at our hotel to drive together to the accident site. They were: Glen and Menno who we had met, Menno’s son Jeremy (who was 10 in 1978 but remembers accompanying a group soon after in a search attempt) and Claire Mast, another friend of Roy’s from the young adults’ group. Conrad had brought along the memorial plaque (provided by brother-in-law Ed Ludwig). On the way up we stopped to buy a roll of wire and some food for lunch. By coincidence, Glen had thrown in a pliers that morning, and Claire a wire cutter, so we were all set to mount the plaque! We drove east on Route 260 for about 50 miles, through Fort Apache Indian Reservation, by a big casino, and took a left on Forest Service Road 117. The area is mountainous and beautiful, with pine trees and aspens covering much of the peaks and grassy meadows interspersed throughout. Mt. Baldy, the highest peak in AZ, is visible to the south. It is in the Apache National Forest.
We drove north on the gravel Forest Service Road for about 6-7 miles and parked just E of Greens Peak. The temperature was very comfortable and the skies blue. The elevation was almost 9000 feet. We had understood that the crash occurred on the western flank of Greens Peak (which is actually more like a good-sized hill). However the site is on a smaller hill just to the east of Greens Peak.
The flight had taken off from Scottsdale, AZ enroute to Hillsboro, KS, and was scheduled to stop at Amarillo TX for re-fueling. When the plane didn’t land in Amarillo on schedule, the alert was put out.
GPS coordinates for the crash site:
Latitude: 34.1202
Longitude: (-) 109.5630
Jeremy and Claire led us as we climbed the slope through a well-tended pine and aspen woods. Glen was in the recovery phase of knee replacement surgery and stayed behind with the cars, as did Menno. It was surprisingly easy hiking, not what we had imagined. Jeremy had a GPS device and the proper coordinates and after a climb of about 20 minutes with several stops to re-assess our location, we found the site. Ned had piled a rock cairn in a depression in the ground. The depression was approximately 2 feet deep, 3 feet wide, and 10 feet long, and we understood that it had been created by the impact of the plane. After 40 years its outlines were softened by layers of fallen pine needles but the crater was still clearly visible and probably deeper than what it appeared. The crest of the mountain was within sight up the hill. Jeremy speculated that if the plane had been flying 100 feet higher in elevation it may have cleared the hill.
Also visible were two old dead trees in the plane’s flight path that were broken off at different lengths. It seemed likely to us that these trees were cropped off by the descending plane. In fact the accident report, in describing Ground Damage, notes “two tall trees.”
It appeared clear from the evidence, even now 40 years later, that the passengers did not survive the impact.
We called Mother from the site and had a good conversation on speaker phone. We took a lot of photos. We then mounted the plaque securely, with wire, onto a thick tree, which we speculated was where the plane came to rest. This tree is quite large and won’t be going anywhere soon. Jeremy had brought his camera drone and he sent that up above the site and took some aerial photos and videos.
We spent maybe 90 minutes at the site and then came back down to the fire road where Menno and Glen were waiting for us. We had lunch together and talked for a while longer. We then had a time of prayer together, thankful for this experience, for the opportunity to meet each other, and thankful for the lives of Darlis and Roy.
Claire Mast was a close friend of Roy’s and accompanied us to the accident site, and we enjoyed getting to know him. He is a gentle person, deeply affected even now by the loss of his friend Roy. Claire comes from eastern PA and moved to Phoenix area in the mid-seventies. He originally came to serve with the 1-W program, a service program for Viet Nam war era conscientious objectors but then decided to settle there. He became close friends with Roy and was part of the same young adult church group. At the crash site he told us that he hadn’t been sure, when he was invited to join our trip, that he wanted to return. But he said that he was glad that he did. He also said that Ned, Roy’s pilot friend, preferred not to come up again but that he had been glad to confirm the site for us. When we gathered as a group, Claire reflected that losing Roy helped him to carry a conviction that if an opportunity comes along in life to do good, you should do it and not wait.
Over the years, those of us who have lost Darlis have each grieved and remembered in our own way, sometimes sharing memories with each other as a family. We have recognized that there have been other families and communities also grieving, but far away, in Phoenix and in Kansas. Coming to spend time in person with the Slabaugh family and their church community in Arizona, we have understood in a deeper way that they also have been grieving and remembering for the past 40 years – working through and trying to understand what happened in December 1978, each in their own particular way.
Conrad Clemens
Fredric Clemens
Jonathan Clemens
Ruth Keidel Clemens
September 2019