Jerry Ambrozuk: The Flight Plan

Dianne Babcock, 18, lived near Vancouver, British Columbia, and was about to start training as a psychiatric nurse. Her boyfriend, Jaroslaw “Jerry” Ambrozuk, was a 19-year-old Polish-born pilot with a private license and little experience. By his later account, the couple planned to elope by faking their deaths: he would land a small plane on a lake, they would swim away, and everyone would assume they had died.

On August 22, 1982, after filing a flight plan from Penticton back to Vancouver, Ambrozuk instead flew a rented Cessna 150 south into Montana and set it down on Little Bitterroot Lake, near Marion, after dark. The plane flipped and sank in over 200 feet of water with Dianne inside. Ambrozuk reached shore, built a fire and vanished, later phoning a friend in Canada to say her seat belt had jammed. Deputies found aircraft parts in the ashes, and sonar located the wreck. Her belt worked, and the cabin held a raft, wigs and survival gear.

Ambrozuk lived in Texas as Michael Lee Smith, a dead infant’s name, and ran a software business. A tip led Plano police to arrest him on August 30, 2006. In May 2007 he pleaded guilty in Montana to criminal endangerment and criminal mischief, the negligent homicide charge was dropped, and he received suspended sentences. After a federal passport fraud conviction, he was deported to Canada.