On December 18, 1977, operated by one of the airline's Douglas DC-8 Jet Traders, registration N8047U,[1] the flight was in a holding pattern in Utah and crashed into a mountain in the Wasatch Range near Fruit Heights.

[2][3][4][5][6] Late on Saturday, December 17, 1977, United Airlines Flight 2860 departed from San Francisco at 23:17 PST (00:17 MST).

The three-man crew consisted of Captain John Fender (49), First Officer Phillip Modesitt (46), and Flight Engineer Steve Simpson (34).

When the flight was near Salt Lake City, less than an hour later at 01:11 MST, the crew radioed the airport that they were having electrical trouble, and requested holding clearance to give them time to communicate with company maintenance.

[7] For the next seven-and-a-half minutes, while in a holding pattern, the flight was absent from the approach control frequency, and entered an area of hazardous terrain.

The National Transportation Safety Board deduced that the cause of the accident was the "controller's issuance and the flight crew's subsequent acceptance of an incomplete and ambiguous holding clearance."