Claimed Girlfriend's Seatbelt Jammed... And Went Missing

It's one of the more bizarre aviation cases we've seen yet. A man whose Cessna 150 crashed into a Montana lake 24 years ago, killing his fiancee, has been arrested in Texas on a murder warrant.

The Kalispell Daily Inter Lake newspaper reports 43-year old Jerry Ambrozuk was picked up Wednesday in the Dallas suburb of Plano... going by the name of Michael Lee Smith.

It all started on August 22, 1982 -- when a 19-year old Ambrozuk and his 18-year old girlfriend, Dianne Babcock -- both Canadians --took off from the airport in Penticton, British Columbia... headed for Vancouver.

Somehow, the 150 ended up over Montana -- and crashed into Bitterroot Lake in Flathead County. Ambrozuk called a friend and told him about the crash -- maintaining Dianne's seatbelt had jammed, so there was just no way he could get her out.

But several authorities who've been pondering this case for more than two decades... say they think Ambrozuk planned the whole thing.

"We didn’t really believe we would find the plane in Bitterroot Lake," one of those officers, Sheriff Jim Dupont, told the paper -- adding neighbors hadn't reported a plane crashing into the lake.

That was before they found evidence of a campfire on the shore of Bitterroot Lake, however. In the ashes of that fire, they found a gust lock and microphone cable from the Cessna. They found a waterproof bag tied to a rope not far from the campfire.

"That’s when we started looking for the plane" in the lake, Dupont recalled.

They searched the lake bed for days... finally finding the wreckage, and the young woman's body, 220 feet below the surface. And no... they say... her seatbelt wasn't jammed.

As for Ambrozuk -- he had simply vanished. The case has twice been featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted."

When he was finally arrested on Wednesday, police in Plano say Ambrozuk admitted his true identity -- and simply told them he wanted a lawyer.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20020917X03210&key=1