Plane Plows Into Paper p. 5

By: M.L. STEIN

THE OROVILLE MERCURY Register in Northern California got the kind of story it didn't want when a U-2 spy plane crashed into its headquarters, killing the pilot and a subscriber, terrorizing employees and knocking out the computer system as fire and smoke invaded the structure.
Only the fact that the plant was built of metal saved the lives of the 17 staffers there at the time, firefighters said.
Fire and smoke spread through the offices, overcoming a local police officer who helped in the evacuation, according to reporter Gary Jones.
"The metal acted as a heat shield, we were told," he said.
Jones was a witness, as well as one of the first staffers to cover the accident Aug. 7.
He said he was in the drive-way of his home, a block and a half away, when he saw a "ball of fire in the sky as the plane broke apart. I watched it come down and I knew where it would hit: the newspaper."
Jones said the pilot, Capt. Randy D. Roby, tried to eject, but apparently the plane's ejection mechanism failed.
Jeri Vering had just renewed her subscription and was leaving the building when the aircraft smashed into the parking lot, part of it hitting a corner of the building housing the power room. Three employees' cars were damaged.
"The plane hit the parking lot nose down," Jones recalled. "It looked like a lawn dart embedded in the asphalt."
The reporter credited advertising manager Lonnie Steadman and desk editor Rick Longley with directing the evacuation. Ironically, Jones had recently returned from Atlanta, where he covered the Olympics, including the Centennial Park bombing, for the 56 Donrey newspapers.
As of Aug. 11, the Mercury Register was being produced at a sister paper, the Chico Enterprise-Record, 20 miles away.
The Enterprise-Record's own computer system went out due to water damage, according to Jones. Firefighters poured 64,000 gallons of water on the flames.
One circulation worker was in a hallway when a ball of fire rolled toward her, Jones said. She saved herself by ducking into a room.
Photographer Tonya Paul was knocked six feet into a wall by the force of the crash, which many in the building thought was an earthquake.
But Paul and other news staffers went immediately to work, resulting in a special edition the next day.
"It was an incredibly good job," said editor Roger Aylworth, who was vacationing in Utah at the time of the disaster and rushed back immediately.
"It [the coverage] was not possible, but they did it," he added. "I think it was as good as the big dailies' coverage of the Bay Area earthquake" in 1989.
The Mercury Register's next-day special issue featured multiple stories and pictures, including a sidebar about U-2 crashes dating back to the 1950s. In 1980, one of the secret reconnaissance planes, from nearby Beale Air Force Base, plunged into a field three miles from the Mercury Register.
During the recent incident, the Enterprise-Record reported, military personnel kept onlookers and the media 1,000 feet away from the crash site.
"Security was so tight that at one point a TV newsman's camera was taken and film he had taken of the wreckage was confiscated," the paper said.
Later, an Air Force public information officer held a briefing during which he disclosed that the aircraft was on a routine training mission.
Aylworth said the Mercury Register would, in the next two weeks, occupy temporary storefront quarters in Oroville. "Our building is being inspected, but I haven't a clue as to when we can move back in," he said.