This day in history: Air ambulance crash claimed life of former Chewelah man; new Spokane radio station reached London

From 1975: Two people were found alive in the snowy Cascades foothills following the crash of an air ambulance flight from the Tri-Cities to Seattle.

Three people were dead, including Paul Foos, 50, formerly from Spokane and Chewelah, Washington. He was being airlifted to the University of Washington Hospital when the plane went down in mountainous terrain.

His wife, Marilyn Foos, survived the crash along with one of the two pilots, but rescuers were unable to reach them until the following day because of the storm.

Foos and the pilot had numerous injuries and were suffering from exposure, but were described as “alert and in remarkably good spirits.”

One rescuer was also injured when a cable winch slipped while he was being lowered from a helicopter.

From 1925: Fledgling Spokane radio station KFPY, which would eventually evolve into KXLY, reached an astonishing milestone when word arrived that its signal had reached Ilford, England, a suburb of London.

It was, said the station’s manager, “a new world’s record for radio distance.” Ilford was 5,276 miles away.

Mrs. D. McLeod of Spokane relayed the news from her sister, Blanche Eames, who said she picked up KFPY on the night of Dec. 15 on her home radio set in Ilford.

Reports from all over the U.S. indicated the Spokane station was heard exceptionally well in mid-December. Weather conditions at the time were “ideal for a long-distance record,” according to a meteorologist.

The Spokane Chronicle summarized it like this: “Spokane to London in two-thousandths of a second!”