On the night of Dec. 8, 1984, a rented Cessna model 210, numbered N6805R piloted by Clifton Browning left Laramie, Wyoming, flying to Grand Junction at 4:30 p.m. The pilot reported to Denver control that his gyro was giving him trouble. He was flying IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) due to darkness and heavy snow encountered en route. Laramie control center steered him back on course only to have the plane fly off course again. The plane disappeared off the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Longmont Air Traffic control radar. The FAA in Grand Junction called the Meeker airport to see if the aircraft had landed there.
The Rio Blanco County sheriff’s office was notified at 6 p.m. of a possible crash and asked to investigate an area southwest of Meeker around Joe Bush Mountain and Kendall Peak. At 11 p.m. Sheriff Ron Hilkey, his wife Dona (who was a member of search and rescue), and Deputy Ellis Johnson packed themselves into a pickup and wound their way on farm roads to reach the ridge. The area was windy with light snow falling. Ron caught a whiff of aviation gas but could see no wreckage. Ron was in radio contact with Gary Coulter at the Meeker airport. Gary promised air support as soon as the light allowed. The ground team stayed out all night and waited for morning.
The next day, the mangled wreckage was spotted from the air by Gary Coulter and Dave Thomas. Coulter directed the search party to the plane. Sheriff Ron Hilkey reported that the Cessna had crashed with the engine buried five feet in the ground after what appeared to be a 75-degree dive into the mountain. The pilot, Cliff Browning, was dead, there was no one else with him. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded in their investigation that a vacuum system may have been the cause of the gyro failure. The cause was determined to be an accident, mechanical failure. That simple statement closed the book on an accident, or did it?
It was later revealed that the pilot was Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent Cliff Browning of Glenwood Springs who was on the return trip from Wyoming after investigating a person of interest. So, who was Agent Browning and why does this sound like an ominous lead into an episode of the “X-Files”? Because Agent Browning had been spending the last few years concentrating on cocaine drug rings operating out of Aspen, Colorado.
He was an advocate of using undercover agents to ferret out distributors in Pitkin County. He was also at odds with Pitkin County Sheriff Richard Kienast who was very much opposed to Federal agencies poking their noses into local crime, especially with the use of undercover agents. Agent Browning went as far as to accuse Kienast and other officials of tipping off a drug ring during an investigation. Kienast was cleared, but one of his deputies later pled guilty to selling drugs in a separate incident.
The whole thing backfired on the FBI and DEA when CBS aired the story on TV in February of 1980. The segment featured Sheriff Kienast’s law enforcement philosophy of keeping Big Brother out of local matters. 60 Minutes recorded the sheriff’s department removing a surveillance device that had been monitoring a local Aspenite. The FBI sheepishly came to the Sheriff’s office to retrieve it.
Soon after Browning’s death, his name was revealed in an affidavit. The affidavit was mentioned in the Jan. 31, 1985, edition of the Aspen Times outlining the indictment of Steven Hunt Grabow and others for distributing cocaine in a multimillion-dollar international drug ring. Arrests were made and $950,000 in cash was discovered with a warrant on one of Grabow’s alleged associates. Browning was deeply involved in the investigation which included wiretaps and searching Grabow’s garbage for evidence.
On Dec. 8, 1985, exactly one year after Browning’s death, Steven Grabow left his Aspen Club after playing tennis. He was one month away from his scheduled trial. He walked to his borrowed Jeep and became the victim of a car bomb. I know this reads like a Hollywood script, but I did not make this up. To my thinking, Browning was a thorn in the side of some very ruthless people. Today he holds a place on the FBI’s Wall of Honor which reads “On December 8, 1984, Special Agent Clifton D. Browning, Jr., a pilot, used his plane for official business, flew from an aerial surveillance assignment in Laramie, Wyoming to Grand Junction, Colorado. He lost control of the aircraft, and his plane crashed, killing him.”
In November of 2005, the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” featured the murder of Grabow and named Aspenite Robert Young as a person of interest. The FBI does not give up easily. Agent Browning would be proud.
Sources: Colorado Historic Newspaper database, Meeker Herald, 5280 Magazine, Ron Hilkey, White River Museum, RBC Historical Society. RBC Sheriff Office.
By ED PECK
