Looking back at Utah’s tragic mid-air collision in 1987
Jan 30, 2025, 8:46 PM | Updated: Jan 31, 2025, 9:51 am
KEARNS — It’s been 38 years since Utah witnessed its own tragic mid-air collision over the skies of Kearns.
It was Jan. 15, 1987, at about 12:58 p.m. SkyWest Airlines Metroliner Flight 834, en route from Pocatello to Salt Lake City International, was hit by a small single-engine Mooney M-20 taking off on a training flight from airport No. 2 in West Jordan.
The result was catastrophic, as 10 people were killed and debris, including human remains, fell down from the sky on a nearly 40-block area of homes.
“When we pulled up, got out of the car and I looked at the parking lot and all I saw was body parts,” recalls retired KSL TV journalist Keith McCord.
McCord and KSL photographer Bob Greenwell were close to the area that cold January day. They were preparing a report on the incoming storm when they were rerouted to the mid-air collision in Kearns.
“And pretty soon people are starting to come at us. Because they see us, saying ‘come over here, come down the street, there’s an airplane wing in my roof of my house, there’s a there’s an engine in my backyard. There are clothes hanging in the trees and in the neighbors,’” McCord said.
Why the SkyWest Metroliner and Mooney M-20 collided mid-air
According to FAA investigators in 1987, the Skywest plane was about 2,400 feet above the valley floor at the time of the collision and its correct airspace when it was hit.
A Deseret News article from the following day quotes FAA investigators saying the pilot in the single-engine plane never communicated with the FAA’s control tower before entering the jet’s airspace.
McCord says the mid-air collision in Washington on Wednesday is an eerie resemblance to the crash in Kearns.
“I’m watching it last night on the news and they’re saying, okay, the helicopter was higher than it probably should have been, the Kearns thing is the same way, the SkyWest plane was coming in on final approach and the single-engine plane, which had taken off from Salt Lake Regional Airport No. 2 was coming up, it was higher than it should have been,” McCord said.
McCord says the mid-air collision in Kearns left the community in shock, as investigators spent the following days and weeks collecting grim evidence of it. Even now, McCord says it is one of the most difficult and tragic events of his career.
“I mean, there were bones and legs, and it was just it was bad, I’m sure the community in that area, they lost a lot of sleep because of what just happened, what just fell out of the sky,” McCord said. “I hope I never have to see it again.”