Two men escaped with relatively minor injuries when their Beech Baron 58 went down in a field near Missoula (MT). The airport was closed briefly as rescue crews responded to the accident. It happened Monday night in dense fog, according to local authorities. The aircraft was leased by the National Forest Service from RidgeAir, Inc., a Jacksonville (TX) company. Officials said the Baron had just dropped off two pilots at the Missoula airport. Both of those remaining on board were employed by the Forest Service. The aircraft had departed Redmond (OR) and, after its stop in Missoula, was returning there, according to a spokeswoman for the Forest Service. "What I can tell you is that both people aboard were Forest Service employees and they work out of Redmond fire center," Paula Nels

The NTSB is investigating last week's crash of a Lear 24-B in the California desert near Chino, but there's little to go on. The high-speed impact claimed the lives of both crew members on board, dug a deep crater in a San Bernardino County ridge and spread debris for a quarter-mile. The aircraft had been on a flight from Chino to Idaho, according to the FAA. "The captain said he needed to return to Chino," Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Donn Walker said. "The pilot then declared an emergency. He was at 24,000 feet when we lost radar and radio contact with him at ... 9:11 am."