The Region - News from April 9, 1985
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A Butte County businessman was killed when his single-engine airplane crashed into the sea a mile off the Goleta Pier, near the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus. The body of Gerald W. Compton, 51, of Richvale, was recovered by a commercial fisherman. Compton’s two sons told authorities that their father had just returned them to UC Santa Barbara, where they are students, after the weeklong pre-Easter holiday, and was en route home when the crash occurred. Airport officials speculated that Compton might have become disoriented and lost control of the airplane in a fog bank that was just offshore. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
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