The plane now bound for the high mountains of the Continental Divide carried WSU athletic director Bert Katzenmeyer, head coach Ben Wilson, Kansas state legislator Carl Fahrbach, the university’s admissions director, several of their wives, ticket manager Floyd Farmer, and twenty-two starting players. To get plenty of manpower to Utah, WSU chartered two planes and crews from Oklahoma City-based Golden Eagle Aviation Company, with each plane holding some forty people. This was also the first time the team would play that far west.
The WSU Shockers football squad hoped to win its first game of the season at Utah after losing its first three. Pilot Danny Crocker and copilot Ronald Skipper did not file a flight plan. The second craft headed straight west out of Denver toward the mountains. One of the planes proceeded to Utah via southern Wyoming, avoiding Colorado’s high mountain wall. Both airplanes refueled at Denver’s Stapleton Airport. They were bound for Logan, Utah, to play the Utah State University Aggies the following day. On Friday, October 2, 1970, a pair of Martin 404 twin-engine aircraft took off from Wichita, Kansas, carrying the Wichita State University (WSU) football team, coaches, and VIP supporters. Today, a memorial below the crash site on Interstate 70 commemorates the tragedy, and the FAA has gone on to pass stricter regulations with each passing year. The crash spurred the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to review and revise its regulations concerning air taxi services, and public pressure forced it to perform its inspection duties more diligently.
Bethel along Colorado’s Continental Divide, killing thirty-one passengers.
In early October 1970, a twin-engine aircraft carrying forty people associated with the Wichita State University football team crashed into Mt.
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