VC Looks Back at 1970 WSU Plane Crash

VC looks back at 1970 WSU plane crash

It was Friday, October 2, 1970. Two twin engine propliners took off from Denver's Stapleton Airport headed for Logan, Utah. They carried coaches, players and Wichita State University officials.

One plane safely touched down later. But at 1:14 p.m. Mountain time, a Martin 4-0-4 aircraft flown by Golden Eagle Aviation crashed eight miles west of Silver Plume, Colo. Shortly before the crash, several witnesses described seeing a plane fly unusually low towards the Continental Divide. Some witnesses located on higher mountainside locations like Loveland Pass reported seeing the plane flying below them. The overloaded aircraft, nearing Loveland Pass as it flew up Clear Creek Valley, became trapped in a box canyon and was unable to climb above the mountain ridges surrounding it on three sides.

The National Transportation and Safety Board report stated a belief that many on board survived the initial impact, based on the testimony of survivors and rescuers. The load of fuel on board did not explode immediately, allowing survivors to escape the wreckage, but the passenger cabin would eventually be consumed by an explosion before those still alive and trapped inside could escape.

Twenty-nine passengers as well as the Captain and Flight Attendant were killed. Two of the initial 11 survivors later died of their injuries.

The October 3 game between WSU and Utah State was cancelled. The Utah State football team held a memorial service at the stadium where the game was to be played and placed a wreath at midfield. WSU officials and family survivors were flown to Denver on a plane made available by the State of Kansas. Classes were cancelled Monday, October 5, and a memorial service was held that evening at Cessna Stadium.

The remaining WSU team was given permission by the NCAA and Missouri Valley Conference to allow freshmen to fill out the squad. The Shockers decided to continue the 1970 season which was later designated the "Second Season."

That Second Season began three weeks later in a game at Arkansas. The Razorbacks won 62-0, but most people in the stands that day knew that wasn't the most important lesson learned that day. Those listening to the game on radio back in south central Kansas cried as 18-year-old young men had brought football back to south central Kansas. Kansans were proud of their Shockers no matter what the scoreboard said.

One man who survived the crash was Rick Stephens, who still calls Wichita home. Minutes before impact, Stephens walked toward the cockpit and questioned the pilots why the plane was flying so low. Before he could return to his seat, the plane's wings began clipping trees. The 22-year-old Stephens was thrown a safe distance from the cabin.

When rescuers carried him down the mountain to safety, Stephens had broken several bones. Rehabilitation followed. He recovered fully, but he never played football again.

"We should all be in awe of the miraculousness of our own existence," Stephens told The Kansas City Star earlier this year.

Now 62 and a grandfather, the retired high school educator embarked this spring on his fourth Wichita-to-Winnipeg bike ride. The 1,009-mile, 10-day journey has been the most challenging adventure of his life.

That's amazing, considering what happened 40 years ago.

The Shockers did away with football after the 1986 season. All that's left now is a monument on the WSU campus honoring those who perished as well as a 30,000-seat white elephant (Cessna Stadium) that occasionally hosts a junior college or high school game. There is also a roadside memorial plaque listing the names of the victims on I-70, about one mile east of the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado.

Sadly, it wasn't the only plane crash that year that took the lives of young athletes. Less than one month after the October 2 accident, 75 players, coaches and staff of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team died in a crash of Southern Airways Flight 932 near Ceredo, W.Va.