Most college football fans are familiar with the tragic plane crash carrying dozens of players, coaches, and other people affiliated with Marshall University that claimed the lives of all 75 people who were returning from a game against East Carolina on November 14, 1970. However, you may not know about a similar incident involving the team at Wichita State that had unfolded just a little over a month before.
Most people know Wichita State as a basketball school, as the Shockers transformed into perennial March Madness invitees under head coach Gregg Marshall in the 2010s (a run that included an unlikely trip to the Final Four in 2013).
A good chunk of the people reading this weren’t even born in the bygone era when Wichita State still had a football program. Toward the end of the 1986 campaign, the school—which had boasted a team since 1897—announced it was cutting the sport due to its fiscally unsustainable nature.
The Shockers never really came close to becoming national contenders before that point (as evidenced by the 375–402–47 all-time record the team posted during its existence), and their inability to make much of a mark means it’s only natural that the program has become a bit of a footnote in college football history.
With that said, it’s still pretty hard to believe more people aren’t aware of the plane crash that has since been overshadowed by the one that impacted Marshall the very same year.
In this day and age, air travel is statistically one of the safest methods of transportation out there. Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do to prevent things from going south, and a number of big names and teams have been involved in aviation-related tragedies since that method became a popular way to get around.
In 1931, legendary Notre Dame head coach Knute Rockne became the first notable figure in the sports world to pass away in that manner when a plane crash cut his life short at the age of 43. In the decades that followed, Manchester United, Torino F.C., and the United States figure skating team lost some (or, in the case of the last, all) of their members in accidents, but the potential downsides weren’t enough to dissuade the vast majority of athletes and teams from opting for the most convenient option.
On October 2, 1970, Wichita State had charted two planes to fly the team around 1,000 miles west for a showdown with Utah State. Prior to that point, the program had been relying on a Douglas DC-6B that could fit the entire squad, but the aircraft was damaged and forced them to turn to a couple of Martin 4-0-4s that hadn’t taken to the skies since 1967.
The planes were dubbed “Gold” and “Black” as a nod to Wichita State’s colors; the first was reserved for starters, the head coach, and athletic director as well as boosters and certain family members and was piloted by Ronald G. Skipper, the president of the aviation company that was operating both of the flights.
The journey was a two-stop trip that required a stop in Denver, and prior to leaving for Utah, Skipper informed the passengers aboard Gold that he planned to take a “scenic route” that would give them a better view of the Rocky Mountains.
However, this wasn’t the most prudent decision for a man who didn’t actually have the flight hours required to be the primary operator of the specific plane (his co-pilot was officially listed as the captain despite occupying the seat traditionally reserved for the person with the “First Officer” title Skipper technically claimed).
Eyewitnesses in the area where Gold was spotted after takeoff said the plane was flying over 1-70 at a noticeably low altitude for an aircraft that size, and efforts to get it high enough after flying into a canyon near Loveland Pass weren’t enough to gain the altitude required to get back over the mountains that essentially boxed the plane in.
At 1:14 P.M., the Gold plane collided with trees on the slope of Mount Trelease (around 60 miles west of Denver) before crashing. While some of the 40 people aboard were able to survive the initial crash and exit the plane to safety, the fuel tank eventually caught fire and caused an explosion that contributed to the death of 31 people—including 14 football players—who were unable to overcome the injuries they sustained.
The Black plane landed in Utah without incident, but by the time the dust settled, just eight players were able to walk away from the wreckage in Colorado (Skipper was the only other survivor, and a subsequent NTSB investigation that attempted to determine what went wrong essentially blamed him for taking an unnecessary and irresponsible route).
The game with Utah State that was supposed to be played the following day was called off (the Aggies placed a wreath at the 50-yard line during a memorial service it held instead), and Wichita State ultimately constructed a memorial on campus where a wreath is placed on October 2nd each year to “Remember the 31.”
