Survivors Mark 20Th Anniversary Of Crash That Killed 14 Wichita State Football Players

EDITOR'S NOTE - Michael Bates was a sophomore at Wichita State University in 1970 when 14 of the school's football players died in a Colorado plane crash that killed 31 people. Bates covered the story for the campus newspaper.

WICHITA, Kan. - Keith Morrison somehow survived the plane crash that killed 14 Wichita State football teammates and 17 others on Oct. 2, 1970.

``I don't know if I was thrown clear, or crawled out,'' he said from his bed in a Denver hospital the next day.

``I heard screams,'' Morrison said. ``I recognized the voices.''

Survivors of the crash and about 200 other persons gathered last week to mark its 20th anniversary with a memorial service at the university.

Morrison, who was 21, was at the back of the plane when it crashed. Six fellow players who wandered dazed onto a nearby highway also had been near the back.

He was hospitalized for six weeks, his arms, hands, chest, left leg and right ankle heavily bandaged. His face was cut and bruised.

For a year, he had nightmares and flashbacks.

He married the coed he proposed to 10 days before the crash. They live in San Antonio, Texas, with their daughter, Christy, 12.

Morrison is a successful stockbroker with a six-inch scar on his left thigh where he was cut to the bone in the crash. His clients sometimes ask about those days.

Since he was hospitalized, Morrison missed most of the initial grieving on campus.

``Because I didn't have to go through the trauma of the memorial services and everything, it doesn't bother me to talk about it,'' he said. ``But I don't think about it all the time.''

Other survivors haven't fared as well. Some have had emotional and substance-abuse problems.

James Rhatigan, who was Wichita State dean of students in 1970 and still is, said it is difficult to know if their troubles stem from the crash, since some of the students may have had difficulties anyway.

``We didn't know anything then about grief counseling and survivor guilt,'' he said. ``Looking back on it, we may have underestimated the pain the players had. We saw the strength and resoluteness of the team and didn't see the pain underneath.''

The remaining team members voted to complete their season. Soon after, they faced then-No. 9 ranked Arkansas and lost 62-0. The remaining five games of the season were losses, too, for a 1970 season record of 0-9.

Football was not paying its way in 1970 at Wichita State. The program never achieved financial self-sufficiency and was discontinued at Wichita State at the end of the 1985-1986 season.

Morrison has not been back to Wichita since 1978, when 33 state and federal lawsuits filed in connection with the crash were settled for $1.56 million. It was about one-tenth of the amount sought by survivors like Morrison and the relatives of the 31 who died.

Because of commitments in Texas, Morrison did not attend Tuesday's service.

Moments before the crash, the team was getting a spectacular view of the Rockies. They were en route to play Utah State in Logan.

Near Silver Plume, Colo., close to the base of Loveland Pass, the twin-engine charter plane banked left, then right and began vibrating.

It cut a gash 50 feet wide and 150 feet long through mountain pine trees and burst into flames. The trees still have not grown back completely.

Investigators blamed pilot error.

Also killed were the team's coach, Ben Wilson, some of his staff, Wichita State's athletic director, the dean of admissions and records, and some team boosters. There were 36 passengers and a crew of four.

A second plane carrying 22 of the younger team members, six assistant coaches and six other passengers landed in Utah safely. It was there Bob Seaman, an assistant coach, got word of an urgent call for him from Wichita State President Clark Ahlberg.

The others were asked to stay on the plane. Seaman returned to the plane, took roll of those on board, and then told them the other plane had crashed.

News reports of a plane crash reached Wichita within hours. Friends and relatives gathered outside the athletic department to learn what had happened.

Clusters of students gathered on campus sharing their disbelief and grief.

``The student body and the entire community were deeply affected by this tragedy,'' Rhatigan said.

A few hours after the plane went down, then-Gov. Robert Docking ordered the Kansas Air National Guard to fly relatives of the survivors to Denver.

Seaman and some of the survivors returned to Wichita State Tuesday to participate in the annual memorial service. They gathered on campus in Wiedemann Hall, which was built next to the Duerksen Fine Arts Center where national investigators staged hearings on the crash.

A wreath was placed at Memorial '70, a two-part sculpture on the west edge of the campus. The sculpture has an upright concrete rectangle representing the plane that arrived in Utah and a similar size rectangle bent in the middle at a 90-degree angle symbolizing the plane that crashed.

Rhatigan said the annual memorial service is important to people who still care about the crash and want to gather to remember it and provide comfort to each other.