On March 31, 1931, Knute Rockne and seven others were killed in a plane crash southwest of Bazaar, Kansas. This event was depicted in the famous movie "Knute Rockne: All American" starring Pat O'Brien and Ronald Reagan. Here is a link to a New York Times report of the crash

http://mitchellarchives.com/knute-rockne-dies.htm


Every five years, a commemoration of that event and of the life of Rockne takes place at the scene. This year, the 80th anniversary commemoration took place on Saturday morning, April 2, 2011. I am a rank and file Notre Dame alumnus (Class of 1976) and a devotee of Knute Rockne.

At the outset, I want to thank everyone who made the day so special—Sue Ann Heathman Brown and her brother Tom; Knute Rockne’s grandson Nils Rockne; the lady bus drivers from the Chase County Unified School District; the Bazaar Ladies Aid; the pilot of the flyover; Mr. Cornelius, the owner of the property where the monument stands; as well as ND alum Pat Reis and the Rockne Memorial Committee. As for James Easter Heathman, you will always be a true friend to all Notre Dame people and you will always live long in our memories; recquiescat in pacem.

The crash site is roughly 150 miles southwest of the Kansas City airport. I overnighted in one of the hotels near MCI. Early Saturday morning, I took I-29 south to exit 9, going west on Missouri Highway 152, a spur freeway to I-435 (the KC outer beltway), crossing the Missouri River just south of there and entering Kansas, continuing to I-35 near Olathe, then southwest on I-35 to Emporia; at Emporia, I followed the signs to US 50 west at the junction with the Kansas Turnpike; then 17 miles west to Strong City, making a left on Kansas Highway 177 (the Flint Hills Scenic Byway), through the county seat of Cottonwood Falls, and then on to the old Bazaar schoolhouse, which serves as a community center today, on the right hand side of the highway, about 9 miles south of US 50. The total driving time was 2 hours 15 minutes. Easter Heathman is buried in the cemetery across the road to the north of the schoolhouse, in a plot which is easy to find as it is covered with white crushed stone.

At the schoolhouse we signed in and were driven to the crash site by the dedicated bus drivers of the Chase County Unified School District. The crash site is on private property and is not readily visible from the state highway. To get there, we went south on highway 177 about 3.5 miles, to a turnoff just before an overpass taking 177 over a north-south railway. There are large gravel piles at this point. Going west from the highway, the bus entered a “two-track” road, climbed over a ridge, then went downhill on a rakish angle, forded a stream at the bottom of the ridge, and then went uphill to a point maybe 50 yards from the site, which is marked by a large stone tablet shielded from grazing cattle by a wood and barbed-wire enclosure. This is about 1-1/8 miles west of the state highway. I was asked by a fellow ND alum if the monument could be seen on a Google aerial map. I think I have pinpointed the geographical coordinates: 38° 14’ 10” N Lat.; 96° 35’ 12” W Long. In the search box on Google maps, enter 38.2358 [space] -96.5867. A green arrow will appear on the map, and this appears to be right on the monument.

This site had been lovingly looked after for some 75 years by James Easter Heathman, a local farmer, who as a teenager on March 31, 1931 was one of the first (if not the first) person to reach the wreckage of Transcontinental & Western Flight 599, Fokker F-10 service from Kansas City to Los Angeles, where Knute Rockne was headed to discuss his participation in making a football movie. Rockne was one of six passengers and two pilots who died in the crash. For Notre Dame people and friends and followers of Rockne, perhaps the greatest coach in any sport in American history, this is sacred ground. Sadly, Easter passed away in January, 2008 at age 90. I was lucky enough to have met him once—what a beautiful, beautiful man.

The Flint Hills belie a common misperception that Kansas is flat. The community of Bazaar, associated with the crash, is 1,230 feet above sea level; the crash site is 1,375 feet above sea level, and there is a hilltop southwest of the crash site that is 1,445 feet above sea level. The Flint Hills are some of the last remaining open prairie lands left in the Great Plains; it was explained to us during the ceremonies that, of the grasslands which were found by explorer Zebulon Pike 200 years ago, only 4% of the open prairies seen by Pike remains more or less the same, now as then. The bluestem grasses native to these prairies are favored grazing lands for prime Texas beef cattle, who are trucked up to Kansas in the spring and then taken back to the Lone Star State in the fall. The area is really lovely; serene vistas where one can really experience the power of the land. The friendly people who made us feel so welcome renew one’s faith in the greatness of America.

At the memorial program, we were treated to talks by one of Knute Rockne’s grandsons, Nils Rockne, ND alums Pat Reis and Pat Smith and sports historian Bernie Kish. The Most Rev. George K. Fitzsimmons, Bishop emeritus of Salina, made brief remarks and prayed for the deceased. Mary Rattenbury, director of the Rockne Heritage Fund at Notre Dame was on hand to present Easter’s daughter and son, Sue Ann and Tom, a replica of a bronze plaque which has been installed at Notre Dame Stadium commemorating Easter’s remarkable service to the Notre Dame family. The Notre Dame Athletic Department arranged for a beautiful wreath to be placed in front of the monument; ND Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick wrote a fine letter which was read at the ceremony. At 10:48 a.m., a replica aircraft of the early 1930s made a flyover.

Afterwards, the Bazaar Ladies Aid fixed lunch for at least 300 people, who listened to anecdotes and local history, including some interesting facts from Kansas aviation historian Richard Harris. Major changes to interstate air travel took place after the Rockne plane crash, including the banning of the Fokker F-10 from revenue passenger service, the emergence over the next decade of new, safer and faster passenger aircraft, including the DC-3, and, by 1940, the creation of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (forerunner of the FAA).

Plans are being made for the 85th anniversary commemoration in 2016. I for one hope to be there.

There is a Knute Rockne memorial maintained at the Matfield Green service plaza at mile marker 97 on the Kansas Turnpike (I-35). This is about 9 airline miles south of the crash site. I drove down to the turnpike entrance at Cassoday, then northeast on the turnpike to the plaza.

Pictures of the day in the Flint Hills can be found at the following link:

http://pangborn76.smugmug.com/Other/...37663264_xywxS
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With respect to my flights to and from mid-America, why choose Southwest’s $374 round-trip non-stop cattle class BWI-MCI and return when one can grab a Delta medallion connection for $270 DCA-MSP-MCI and return through MEM? I actually got upgraded at the 5 day window on the outbound segments. I had planned to have a bit of quality SkyClub time in DCA on Friday morning 4/1/11, but my plans were thwarted, and I arrived at DCA at 1115 for the 1145 flight. Thank goodness Delta now lets you download boarding passes onto a smartphone, and that this service is available for DCA flights. It took 20 minutes to get through TSA, and fortunately on this day Delta didn’t shut the door 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure, because the inbound aircraft was late. The door did close at 1148, the taxi was quick to the top of runway 1, and we were airborne at 1203—the captain predicted 2 hours 8 minutes to MSP, and he was as good as his word as our Airbus 320 touched down on runway 30R at 1311 CDT. Despite no PDBs because of the chaos on the ground getting the plane turned, I had two terrific flight attendants take care of me; unfortunately I had left my “A Job Well Done” certificates in my office. I did not have to walk very far in the Lindbergh terminal, as the arrival gate was C7 and the departure gate was C10. I’m a newbie at MSP (I think this was my 5th time there since the merger), so this was my first time inside the C12 SkyClub. A friendly concierge admitted me, and there was self-serve Summit microbrew ale back at the bar. Boarding a former North Central DC-9-50, there was a cold bold PDB available, and the next thing I knew we were crossing the Missouri River in the pattern to circle MCI and land on runway 27. I hadn’t been to Kansas City in five years; in that time, a new rental car center had been constructed on the periphery of the airport grounds, and one bus serves all the on-airport car rental firms. I’m a regular at Hertz, and got a really nice Ford Fusion with the Magellan “never lost” and Sirius XM satellite radio—great rental car.

Had an interesting experience on the way home Monday morning that started badly but ended beautifully. I was scheduled for a one-class RJ MCI-MEM departing at 0623, and then an MD-88 MEM-DCA. However, a major thunderstorm (the line of storms ran from Tulsa to Des Moines) had rolled through the Missouri Valley area on Sunday evening; I had been touring Nebraska on Sunday and was driving from Omaha to Kansas City on the I-29 when I entered the storms—between mile markers 100 and 90, a powerful hail storm hit, and, by MM 90, there was at least an inch of ice on the highway, even though the temperature was about 65°F. From MM 90 to MM 18 at Platte City where I grabbed a motel room, rain lashed down in sheets. Inside the room, I took a look at flightaware.com to figure out whether I would have an airplane in the morning—the inbound flight from MEM actually made the run to MCI, and flew almost 500 extra miles to do so (they flew to a point southwest of Tulsa (225 miles SSW of MCI) to get around the storms, then flew north to around Topeka, then turned east to land at MCI, arriving there at about midnight, two hours behind schedule). Delta.com was showing the 0623 departure as on time. So, not having any contradictory information, I got up at 0430 and was back in the rental car by 0500, and reached the rental car center by 0510. Inside the building, I looked up at the bank of airline information monitors, and saw that DL 3777 had been pushed back to 0857.

For some reason, the e-mail notification feature was not working, so I got no details of the delay, or of any rebooking that had taken place. When I had checked-in on line for the flights, I found that my upgrade on the MEM-DCA segment had cleared; of course, that was a moot point by now.

I called the DM desk at Delta, and the call was answered by a female whose first language was not English. She told me I had been booked on the 0600 departure to DTW. By this time, which was 0525, I had no chance of catching a bus to the terminal, getting through TSA and making it on to the flight by 0550 when the doors would most likely close. I asked to be put on the 0700 departure to ATL, which was available; I also asked about getting my upgrade restored, but she told me that all she had was middle seats in the back. I asked to speak to a supervisor—after 5 minutes the supervisor came on the line. By this time, all I wanted to do was get on the flights and get home. I understood her to say that she couldn’t arrange for the upgrade, and at this point I was resigned to middle seats. I was rushing to get on the rental car bus and part of what she was saying dropped out. However, an e-mail came through in the next minute or so, and it showed that I had gotten upgrades on both MCI-ATL and ATL-DCA. Thank you, DM desk supervisor. Delta’s gates (57-60) at MCI have a “SkyPriority” entrance at TSA, so I got through security quickly. The crews on both segments were really good; PDBs on both segments. Both aircraft were 737-800s with overhead TV monitors, which were in operation on the first segment but not on the second (although the safety video played).

On the ATL-DCA run, we almost reached the top of runway 26L when the captain pulled our aircraft over to the side of the taxiway—it turned out that there was some sort of computer problem, which took consultations with Delta TechOps and several reboots to remedy. This took about 30 minutes; then, we were held by ATC while they mapped out a reroute for us, since remnants of the preceding night’s storm had reached various points overhead the Carolinas and Virginia. We were finally airborne about 70 minutes after leaving the gate, and instead of flying toward Charlotte and Richmond, we headed north overhead Knoxville and Princeton, WV before angling NE toward DCA, where we landed at about 1435. Given all the bad weather in the eastern half of the country, I was lucky to have gotten home only three hours behind schedule.