The State - News from Aug. 10, 1987

Guards and prisoners from a nearby conservation camp saved the pilot, but were unable to reach a passenger on board a single-engine Globe Swift private airplane that crashed and burned near the campsite in Tulare County, 30 miles northeast of Porterville. Tulare County sheriff’s Deputy Don Crabtree said pilot Thomas Tompkins, 42, of Reno, and his brother-in-law, Allen Harris, 26, also of Reno, were on a local sightseeing flight from Porterville Airport in the four-passenger vintage craft when it hit a down draft and crashed in a gully near Mountain Home State Conservation Camp. Tompkins was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Visalia, where he was in stable condition. Harris was pronounced dead at the scene.