Riding to Remember
- pittghosthunter36
- Jul 14
- 5 min read
As I started my summer vacation, leaving Pittsburgh and heading to Denver, Colorado, to eventually drive to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, I wanted to stop at an area called Dry Gulch to embark on a hike. The hike leads up a dirt road about 0.3 miles and then turns into a trail that goes up a hill some 600 feet in 0.4 miles. At the top of the mountain is a fork in the path; one can continue straight to an unknown destination, as I did not travel that way. A yellow Wichita State Shockers towel and a rock cairn mark the other trail.
Something that I've found myself fascinated with, despite being highly cautious about exploring abandoned places due to my current line of work, is hiking to airplane crash sites and taking photos of them. This particular site that I was hiking to, as I mentioned above, is on a mountainside. The hike itself was grueling, but in the end, it was worth it. Sitting on top of an unsuspecting mountaintop is the site of the 1970 Wichita State football team's plane crash. The team was on its way to a game in Logan, Utah, against Utah State University. A contract with Golden Eagle Aviation was finalized three months before the fatal trip. The original plan was to take one DC-6B plane that was large enough to carry the whole team. That plan fell through when the DC-6B was damaged in a windstorm. Instead, the team had to take two Martin 4-0-4s to compensate for the loss of the larger plane. The team and coaches were on the two jets from Wichita to a fueling stop at Stapleton Field in Denver, and then continued to Logan, Utah.
After their scheduled refueling stop on Stapleton Field in Denver, the two planes departed. One plane made it to Logan, Utah; the other did not. Pilot error on a clear flying day led to the other plane crashing into the mountainside near Dry Gulch, which is about an hour from Denver, Colorado, off of I-70. Of the 40 total on the plane (3 crew, 37 passengers), 29 people died at the scene, including 27 passengers, a captain, and a flight attendant. Reports indicate that the fuel did not immediately explode after impact, allowing many on board to survive. However, the passenger cabin was engulfed in an explosion shortly after, which prevented further survivors. Two of the initial eleven survivors did pass away from their injuries. Fourteen of the deceased were Wichita State football players.
How does something like this happen to a commercial flight? During the stopover in Denver, the pilot who did survive stopped to pick up flight routes that went over points of interest so that the players could have an educational experience during their trip. The pilot failed to account for the needed clearance of the trees in the area where the plane eventually went down. The aircraft struck trees on its way to the ground. The routes that the two planes took to Logan were different. Thus causing the accident. As happens with all accidents of this nature, the National Transportation Safety Board did a thorough investigation. During testimonies from witnesses, survivors, the pilot who survived, and others, it was determined that fault rested with pilot error. Witnesses described seeing an airplane flying oddly low near the Continental Divide. Other witnesses said that they noticed the plane flying below them when they were hiking on Loveland Pass, which is 12,000 feet above sea level. A survivor of the crash and a senior guard of the team was quoted in 2013 as stating that when he noticed that there were vehicles above the plane out the window, he went to the cockpit to check and knew they were in trouble because the only thing he noticed in front of them at the time was green. Not the blue sky that one was supposed to see outside during that trip. The plane eventually became trapped in a canyon that the pilots were unable to maneuver out of in time, resulting in the "Gold" plane clipping trees and crashing.
In the aftermath of the crash, the team's game against Utah State was cancelled, and the two teams never played against each other ever again, as Wichita State disbanded its football team in 1986. The team did continue their season in 1970, but without a lot of their upper-classmen players who perished in the crash. Six weeks after this event, the Marshall Thundering Herd football team's plane crashed near Huntington, West Virginia, where the university was located. There were no survivors in that accident, but the phrase "We Are Marshall" lived on.
Those killed in the crash on the mountain were as follows:
Pilot: Daniel Crocker
Flight attendant: Judith Dunn
Flight attendant: Judith Lane
Maxine and Ramon Coleman (husband and wife, Ramon was the chairman of the Shocker booster club)
Carl Fahrbach, Dean of Admissions at WSU
Floyd Farmer, Ticket Manager
Etta and John Grooms (husband and wife, John was the membership booster)
Martin Harrison, team manager
Albert and Marion Katzenmeyer (husband and wife, Albert was the athletic director at WSU).
Raymond King, Kansas State Representative, and his wife Frances
Thomas Reeves, head football and men's basketball athletic trainer, died three days after the crash due to complications from his injuries.
Ben and Helen Wilson (husband and wife, Ben was the head football coach)
Marvin Brown (WSU football player)
Donald Christian (WSU football player)
John Duren (WSU football player)
Ronald Johnson (WSU football player)
Randall Kiesau (WSU football player)
Malory Kimmel (WSU football player)
Carl Krueger (WSU football player)
Stephan Moore (WSU football player)
Thomas Owen (WSU football player)
Eugene Robinson (WSU football player)
Thomas Shedden (WSU football player)
Richard Stines (WSU football player) John Taylor (WSU football player) survived 26 days after the crash until he eventually also passed away.
Jack Vetter (WSU football player)
The average age of the 14 football players who passed away in the crash or the aftermath was 20 years old.
In my experience at this site, it was somber. I couldn't get over the vast amount of wreckage that sits at the top of this peak. This wreck happened in 1970, but nearly fifty-five years later, almost all of the debris remains on this mountain. I think that mostly has to do with the lack of public knowledge that the site exists, but also because it is a memorial site to a devastating tragedy. I often write about how I do not believe in coincidences, and when it started to pour down rain at the site while I was there taking photos, I took that as a sign that the sadness I was feeling was real. The surreal sensation that went through my body when the raindrops were hitting the metal plane pieces reminded me of how important it is to live life in the moment and to never take a second for granted, because unexpectedly, it can all be taken away.
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