The Cass County Board of Supervisors, Thursday (May 31st), are expected to act on a Resolution in support of naming two US Highway 6 bridges to commemorate two ‘fallen’ Iowa state troopers: Lance Dietsch and Stan Gerling. Trooper Pilot Lance Dietsch and Trooper Stanley Gerling were killed in an airplane accident on June 30th, 1989, near Atlantic. The pair had been searching for an elderly man who had wandered off, and were about to call off the search when they troopers located him in a soybean field. They began to circle the area when the plane made a sudden turn and crashed vertically into the ground. Troopers Dietsch and Gerling were the first aircraft fatalities since the addition of the Patrol Airwing in 1956.

Trooper Pilot Lance Dietsch

Trooper Dietsch, who lived in Council Bluffs, had served with the Iowa State Patrol for six years.

Trooper Gerling, who lived in Atlantic,  had served with the Patrol for one-year.

Trooper Stan Gerling