One of the two pilots of a vintage military plane that was delivering heating oil to a remote Alaska Native village reported a fire on board shortly before the aircraft crashed and burned outside Fairbanks, killing both of them and leaving debris over a wide area, a federal transportation official said Wednesday. The pilot made radio contact about the in-flight emergency shortly after taking off Tuesday, said Clint Johnson, head of the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska regional office.
A Colorado funeral home owner who left nearly 200 bodies to rot and duped the grieving families with fake ashes while pocketing the funeral service money for personal shopping sprees barely dodged the...