SI Vault William Johnson October 19, 1970 The crash of a
chartered airplane carrying a college team was tragedy enough,
but the grief has been intensified by a maze of evidence that
indicates the accident should never have happened Decrease font
Decrease font Enlarge font Enlarge font October 19, 1970  Days
Of Stillness At Wichita State   View CoverRead All Articles View
This Issue  The quality of tragedy is not absolute, and the
death of 30 people in the scorched and melted wreckage of the
Wichita State University football team plane upon a Colorado
mountainside perhaps generated more than its share of bitter
grief. One reason, of course, is that so many of the dead were
so young and so robust. The bodies of 13 boys were found in the
broken plane. Around them lay the paraphernalia they were to
have used the next afternoon at Utah State on the far side of
the Rockies. Black-and-golden helmets, shoulder pads and cleated
shoes were strewn along the swath of charred and broken pines
left by the burning plane. An