Utah Pilot Dies After Crashing Plane in Home

Jack Phillips
8/13/2018
Updated:
8/13/2018

A Utah man flew a small plane into his own home on Aug. 13—hours after he had been arrested for domestic abuse and released.

Duane Youd died in the crash after he flew a Cessna 52 from a nearby airport. His estranged wife, Sandy, and son were inside when he crashed the plane, according to KSL. His family survived.

Youd was arrested 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 12 for a domestic abuse incident in American Fork Canyon, Payson Police Sgt. Noemi Sandoval said.

“They had been drinking. He assaulted her and witnesses saw this happening,” Sandoval told the Deseret News.

He was released from a Utah County Jail on bail, and a short while later, he got into a plane for a company he had worked for and took off from the Spanish Fork airport before crashing at 2:30 a.m.

Sandoval said the plane flew underneath power lines and clipped a nearby garage across the street from the home. Sandoval said it’s a miracle that more people weren’t hurt.

“It’s a lucky thing for us, if anything in this whole situation, is we have the destruction of property and one male deceased, but it could have been so much worse,” Sandoval said.

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The plane and the home caught on fire, but the fire was extinguished, according to the report.

The Deseret News reported that when a reporter contacted the Spanish Fork airport, an operations manager said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Youd had a history of domestic violence, police said. In April 2018, he was booked for disorderly conduct, and he later had to attend marriage and family counseling, the Deseret News reported.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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