This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The two men who died in a plane crash in Butterfield Canyon were identified Friday.
One of them, Capt. Nicholas Thomas, had been a member of the Utah National Guard.
He and Jacob McGoldrick, 37, were killed when their plane, an Aviat A-1B Husky, went down just before 10 a.m. Thursday.
Thomas, 34, had been with the National Guard since 2006, confirmed Lt. Col. Steven Fairbourn.
"Those who knew him spoke highly of him," Fairbourn said. "He was a beloved leader and a beloved soldier."
The Unified Police Department identified the other victim as McGoldrick.
Officials don't know which man was the pilot of the plane, only that one man was an instructor, and the other was deciding whether to buy the plane, according to Unified Police Lt. Brian Lohrke.
"I don't know if we'll ever know who was flying the plane," Lohrke said.
Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Jay Watkins witnessed the crash while he was driving up an Oquirrh Mountains canyon. The plane made a sharp right turn as it lost altitude, he said.
Unified Police, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash.
The two-seater plane had taken off from West Jordan's South Valley Regional Airport, according to airport spokeswoman Nancy Volmer.
The plane had been traveling west in the canyon, and tried to turn around to avoid running into a mountain, Watkins told a Salt Lake Tribune reporter Thursday.
"It looked like they banked right ... but they were losing altitude."
The plane caught fire, but the flames were quickly extinguished, Lohrke said.
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