02/28/2011. Remarks by Jack McKillop: "Produced by Douglas at Long Beach, California, the aircraft was delivered as a C-47A-1-DL to the USAAF with s/n 44-23311 on March 6, 1943. It served in the US during WW II and was transferred to the Reconstruction Finance Corp on June 14, 1946 at Cal-Aero Field, Chino, California.

It was sold to Frank J. Avel of Wichita Falls, Kansas in 1947 and was resold to Northern Consolidated Airlines of Anchorage, Alaska, after conversion from a C-47A to a DC-3C, and registered NC75142. On June 24, 1965 it became one of seven DC-3s operated by Reeve Aleutian Airways of Anchorage, till it was sold to Northern Air Cargo, also of Anchorage, in 1976.

After a brief period with Aero Transit Inc. of Spokane, Washington, it was registered to Richard L. Rude of Spanaway, Washington on February 5, 1980, who sold it on September 23, 1992 to Desert Air Transport of Anchorage which was operating Emery Worldwide flights.

On December 9, 1996, the aircraft took off from Boise on a flight to Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah. Shortly after take off from runway 10L the crew reported the right engine on fire. They tried to return to runway 28L or R but the aircraft crashed right wing low, cart wheeled and burst into flames at 18:03 hours local 0.5 mls (805 m) short of the runway. Weather at the time was 48°F (9°C) and winds of 11.5 mph (18.5 kmh) at 110°.

The probable cause of the accident was determined to be 'a fire within the right engine compartment of undetermined cause and the pilot-in-command's failure to maintain airspeed above the aircraft's minimum control speed. A factor contributing to the accident was the dark night environmental conditions'. The aircraft had 34,124 hours on the airframe."