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Miller, Freeman (1952-1972)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1972 Mar 16 p. 2
Birth date: 1952
text of obituary:
One Killed, One Seriously Hurt
WICHITA, KAN. — A plane carrying two Middlebury, Ind. men on a business trip to Harper, Kan. crashed in an emergency landing attempt near Viola, Kan. last Thursday night, killing one of them and critically injuring the other.
Dead is Freeman Miller, 20, a foreman at Jayco, Inc. of Middlebury. Lloyd J. Bontrager, 38, owner of the camper trailer manufacturing firm, was admitted to St. Joseph Hospital and Rehabilitation Center here in critical condition with fractures of his jaw, one arm and one leg. His condition was reported Tuesday afternoon as somewhat improved but still serious.
The two men left the Goshen Airport on Thursday afternoon to take some camper parts to the Jayco plant at Harper, with Bontrager as pilot. After a refueling stop at Mexico, Mo., they continued on toward Harper. About 11:30 p.m. they radioed the Wichita Municipal Airport that they were running out of fuel and would attempt a landing.
A SEARCH for the plane was begun immediately by officers of Sedgwick and Sumner counties. However, it was about 6:30 the next morning the downed plane was spotted by a helicopter from McConnell Air Force Base. A four-member Civil Air Patrol unit from Newton had joined the search about 4:30 a.m.
Bontrager had attempted to bring the plane down in a quarter section wheatfield, but in the darkness could not see the lone oil well site in the field. The craft struck some ditches near the well, then bounced over a low embankment and slid nose first into the oil well sludge pond, with the nose partially submerged. Both men were thrown from the plane. Miller was dead at the scene, and Bontrager was clinging to a door of the wrecked plane to keep from sliding into the pond.
Reporters at the scene said that had Bontrager landed 50 feet in either direction, he would have missed the oil well site and would likely have made a safe landing.
THE BODY of Miller was returned to Middlebury, and funeral services were to be held at the Wm. Mast home on Tuesday forenoon. He was a lifelong resident of the Middlebury community. Survivors include his parents, Ervin C. and Sarah Miller; two brothers, Joseph, 19, and Lloyd, 17, and a sister, Edna, 21, all at home; and a grandmother, Mrs. Anna Miller of Notowa, Mich.
