Knute Rockne Crash Site
Memorial
Knute Rockne Crash Site
Memorial
Location: 10 miles South of Cottonwood Falls off Hwy K-177. Monument is located off the road on private property. Access is during dry weather only. To visit the memorial, make arrangements with contact below.
Contact: Chase County Historical Society, Phone: 316/273-8500. Address: PO Box 375, Cottonwood Falls, KS
Nearest Towns:
Cottonwood Falls, Bazaar, Matfield Green.
In the midst of swaying tall grass in the region of Kansas known as the Flinthills, a granite monument marks the spot where TWA flight 599 came tumbling out of the cloudy sky on a cool March morning in 1931 and crashed to earth. All eight aboard will killed instantly. On the stone are marked their names, and at the top of the list is Knute Rockne, innovator of the forward pass and legendary football coach of Notre Dame during the "Golden Era" of sports in the 1920's and early '30's. In this day, when sports heroes are as likely to be on the front page as on the sports page, it's refreshing to remember a giant of a sportsman in the true sense of the word: Knute Rockne. Known to everyone as a modest, intelligent, and honest man, he practiced these virtues both on the field and off.
The photo (left) was taken shortly after the bodies were recovered, and shows the tail section of the Folker Tri-Motor. The plane was of wood construction, and the investigation showed that a laminated wing strut had failed in mid-flight causing the loss of one wing. A witness reported seeing the wing float down some distance from the crash site. This accident was a watershed moment in commercial aviation--then in it's infancy. Prior to this accident, commercial aircraft were not inspected. The crash investigation was the birth of the FAA, and the end of wooden aircraft construction in passenger aircraft. (Photo courtesy Chase County Historical Society.)
An Arial view of the crash site (right). The wreckage of the aircraft is circled. Note the horses above and slightly to the left. These horses were used to pull apart the wreckage and recover the three victims who weren't thrown clear at the time of impact. Amazingly, the plane didn't catch fire. (Photo courtesy of the Chase County Historical Society.)
The morning of the crash, a fourteen year-old farm boy, Easter Heathman, was working on the family farm about two miles from the point of impact. He remembers the sudden loud sound of engines. Thinking it was the sound of cars "racing" on the nearby blacktop, Easter hurried to get his brothers to watch--then there was silence. Soon, neighbors told them there had been an airplane crash in the nearby pasture, and Easter, his brothers and father rushed to the scene to render what aid they could to the victims. Arriving about 1/2 hour after the wreck, they were greeted with a gruesome sight. The smell of gasoline and hot oil hung in the thick air of the cloudy, cool morning. It was a day similar to when Easter took me to the place. The man, now in his eighties, remembers the day as if it were yesterday--the sights, the smells, the sounds. Today, Heathman gladly volunteers to guide visitors to the site, yet it must be a painful experience for him. Each visit to the memorial brings to life again that horrible day so long ago. Telling the story he's told so many times and to so many visitors, his voice breaks slightly, then he goes quiet. Easter notices a flower which has come loose from the wreath at the base of the stone and drifted a few feet away on the ceaseless Kansas wind. Without saying a word, he picks up the flower. With the agility of a man half his age, Easter slips over the low rail fence that protects the monument from the grazing cattle , and carefully reattaches the flower to the wreath. This is a special place. It's hallowed ground.
Easter says on a sunny day fragments of glass from the long-ago airplane crash can still be seen here glittering in the bright light. Standing at the memorial, listening to Easter tell the story, I feel a very strong link to the past . A sudden strong gust of bone-chilling wind rolls through the tall grass. Or is it the roar and propeller wash from the long-ago doomed flight 599...
(Special thanks to Easter Heathman for taking me to see the memorial, and for sharing his memories with me. Thanks, also, to the staff of the Chase County Historical Museum for all their help!)