SOURCES for
"Fans, Family Remember the Crash Heard 'Round the World"
by Richard Harris,
April 3, 2011;
Last updated/revised April 7, 2011
INTERVIEWS & PRESENTATIONS ATTENDED:
Interviews with the family of crash eyewitness/historian Easter Heathman: John and Sue Ann (Heathman) Brown, and Tom Heathman, April 2, 2011, in Bazaar / Matfield Green, Kansas, and at the crash site.
Brief interview with Ray Horch, nephew of crash victim (chief pilot) Bob Fry, April 2, 2011, in Bazaar, Kansas.
Kish, Bernie, former Manager, College Football Hall of Fame, instructor in sports management, University of Kansas, presentation April 2, 2011, memorial event, Bazaar, Kansas, and subsequent conversations with author that day (in person) and next (via phone).
PRINT/ONLINE SOURCES:
Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), "A History of Pride: 70 Years of Pilots Putting Safety First," on the ALPA website, online at: http://cf.alpa.org/internet/accomplishments/safety/
Allen, Frederick, "The Letter that Changed the Way We Fly", American Heritage of Invention & Technology, Fall 1998, with photos of the post-Rockne-crash letter from TWA president Jack Frye seeking a newer airliner (the letter that would trigger development of the DC-3). online at: http://industrialarticles.industrialartifactsreview.com/1988_I&T_Fall_DC3.htm
Includes photos of letter, August, 2nd, 1932 from TWA Pres. Jack Frye to Douglas Aircraft founder Donald Douglas, seeking a new airliner for TWA, which sets as the primary criteria:
"1.) Type: All metal trimotored monoplane preferred but combination structure or biplane would be considered. Main internal structure must be metal." [boldface added ~RH]
Associated Press on WOWT.com, Email Address: sixonline@wowt.com "Service To Mark 80th Anniversary Of Rockne Plane Crash, Notre Dame coach, seven others killed in Kansas".]
Associated Press, by Maria Sudekum Fisher, "J. E. Heathman; found crash that killed Rockne", Obituaries, Boston Globe, February 1, 2008, online at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/02/01/j_e_heathman_found_crash_that_killed_rockne/
Brondfield, Jerry, Rockne:
The Man, The Myth, The Legend;
excerpted chapter: "The Flight of NC-999", excerpted online at: http://www.irishlegends.com/pages/reflections/reflections5.html
Bryan, C.D.B, The National Air & Space Museum: , 5th ed./print., Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. / Harry Abrams, NY - 1979/1985
Ford Tri-Motor...carried 12 passengers, later models carried as many as 14, at 110 mph. The most distinctive aspect of the aircraft was its rugged all-metal construction, readily identified by its corrugated aluminum skin. Its only rival was the tri-motored Fokker, in whose design the Ford owed so much. But when one of these Fokkers crashed, killing Notre Dame's famous football coach, Knute Rockne, and blame for the crash was pinned on the structural failure of the Fokkers wooden construction, the Ford Tri-Motor emerged as the unchallenged transport of that era.
Carter, Bob, "Knute Rockne was Notre Dame's master motivator", Special to ESPN.com (ESPN - The Sports Network), online at: http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Rockne_Knute.html
"It was almost the size of President Kennedy's type impact. It was amazing. They turned out on the train, and at the funeral. He was a national hero," says Elmer Layden, one of Notre Dame's "Four Horseman," about his coach, Knute Rockne. No college football coach has ever had the success of Knute Rockne. In his 13 years as the leader of Notre Dame, his teams went 105-12-5, making his .881 winning percentage the highest in history. Emphasizing quickness, deception and finesse, he had five undefeated teams and won three national championships. When you think college football, you think Knute Rockne at Notre Dame. His squads more than quadrupled their opponents' scoring. Much like the grand design of his football program, Rockne's oratory carried few statutes of limitations. He was renowned for his inspirational pep talks and his magnetic personality won over not only players but alumni, school officials, sportswriters and all those important to the growth of his football fiefdom....
Eckert William G., former Sedgwick County (KS) Coroner, former
instructor in forensic pathology, Wichita
State University, world-renowned author of textbooks Introduction To Forensic Sciences , Forensic Medicine, and several others:
"The Rockne crash: American commercial air crash investigation in the early years."
American Journal of Forensic Medicine & Pathology, 1982 Mar;3(1):17-27.,
online at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7046424
Abstract:In midmorning on March 31, 1931, at Bazaar, Kansas (between Kansas City and Wichita), an F-10A air transport of the Transcontinental and Western Airline crashed in bad weather, resulting in the loss of the two crew members and six passengers.
This crash brought the sensational news to the American public of the death of Knute Rockne, the legendary football coach of Notre Dame University. It also focused the public's attention on the hazards of airline travel in America 50 years ago.The response of the Department of Commerce's Committee on aviation Safety, developing since 1926, helped assure the public that a proper investigation into questions of safety of airline transports was made.
The response to the crash of the F-10A transport that killed Rockne was to ground all the planes and carefully examine the wings for defects.
This resulted in the eventual removal of all wooden wings from air transports and effectively demonstrated the need for advanced aircraft design. This led to the introduction of several new concepts in aircraft design, including the Boeing Transport and the DC series of the Douglas Aircraft company, which has been a mainstay for commercial and military transportation since the early 1930s.
Friedman,
Herbert M. Friedman and Ada Kera
Friedman, "The Legacy of the Rockne Crash",
Aeroplane Magazine, May 2001, U.K. - (Article
provided by the University of Notre Dame Archives, posted on the website " Reflections from the Dome", online
at: http://www.irishlegends.com/pages/reflections/reflections49.html )
Gilbert, James, The Great Planes, Ridge Press / Madison Square / Grosset & Dunlap, NY, 1970
"The Imperishable DC-3": p.143:The death of Notre Dame's Knute Rockne in a disintegrating TWA - Fokker tri-motor had given the breed a bad name, and prompted [TWA president] Frye's search for soemthing better. [Donald] Douglas thought that the big new radial engines coming along... would allow him to meet the TWA specifications with a twin-engined airplane.
Hatch, Orrin, U.S. Senator (R-UT), member of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission, "HATCH PAYS TRIBUTE TO RONALD REAGAN IN MAJOR SPEECH ON SENATE FLOOR; Senator Honors ‘the Gipper’ on the Centennial of his Birth", remarks before the U.S. Senate, Capitol Building, Washington, D.C., February 3rd, 2011, online at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MF6y6Z9Drw4J:hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm%3FFuseAction%3DPressReleases.Print%26PressRelease_id%3Ded374c1f-1b78-be3e-e052-5f83133d6a1e%26suppresslayouts%3Dtrue+site:.gov+Rockne&cd=35&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
"Of all the roles that Ronald Reagan would play, we eventually identified him most closely with the character of George Gipp in 'Knute Rockne: All American.' ..."
Hoover, Herbert, President of the United States, message to Mrs. Knute Rockne, 119 - "Message of Sympathy on the Death of Knute Rockne", April 1, 1931, Washington D.C., cited on the web site of The American Presidency Project, online at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=22587#axzz1IRLvgIhD :
Text:I KNOW that every American grieves with you. Mr. Rockne so contributed to a cleanness and high purpose and sportsmanship in athletics that his passing is a national loss.
~HERBERT HOOVER
Johnson, Randy, M.A. (Ph.D. candidate, Ohio Univ., Athens, OH; certified airline transport pilot & flight instructor), "The 'Rock': The Role of the Press in Bringing About Change in Aircraft Accident Policy.", Journal of Air Transportation World Wide, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2000, Aviation Institute, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
AbstractFrom 1926 to 1938, the Aeronautics Branch, forerunner of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had been charged with aircraft accident investigation. While the Branch had been investigating accideents since its inception, it had, early in its tenure, put into place a policy making its findings secret. Media and political pressure began to mount, in late 1928, over its policy of non-disclosure -- and the debate brought pressure to bear on the young Aeronautics Branch to reverse its policy, and make its findings public. The focusing event for the Branch's policy reversal was the death of Knute Rockne, the famous Notre Dame football coach, in a Transcontinental and Western Airways (TWA) airliner on March 31, 1931. ...
Excerpts:OPENING PARAGAPH:
It is interesting to know that what would become one of the world's most famous aircraft [(the Douglas DC-3)] initially started out as a design that would have little bearing on the final product. When a Transcontinental and Western Airlines Fokker F-10A tri-motor airliner experienced an in-flight failure of its wooden wing on 31 March 1931, and plunged to earth with fatal reeults, America's emerging airlines were suddenly made aware that it was time for a very drastic change in aircraft design.
SIDEBAR: "Effects of the Rockne Crash"
* * *
The sudden death of Rockne...caused not one, but THREE very large, separate and distinct shockwaves in American life:- One...in the sports world; rarely if ever has one death caused so much grief among athletes...
- The second...in the larger world of American society. Rockne... was extremely well known both by name and reputation in all walks of life, something never known before or since, and therefor hard to understand by later generations. Newspapers some 2 years later still discussed the causes, and mourned Rockne. A movie was made of his life. There was Rockne automobile.
- The third... in the field of commercial aviation. ... Never before "the Rockne Crash" (as it came to be known), however, and not until a half a century later, has an airliner crash caused such an impact on commercial aviation, or such public outcry:
A.) The Bureau of Air Commerce (forerunner of...the FAA) temporarily "grounded" all Fokkers -- the first general airliner grounding by type in history. The U.S. government then established new policies of safety rules and regulations.B.) In a very real way, because of the Rockne incident (together with other business problems, the Great Depression, the sronger all-metal Ford Tri-Motors, and the soon-to-fly "modern" Boeing 247), the Fokker Aircraft Corp. -- by then controled by General Motors -- soon disappeared.
C.) Because of the Rockne crash, the airlines all wanted modern airliners, but United Air Lines had monopolized the production of the Model 247. [TWA], stung by the Rockne publicity, began looking for new designs. The result was the DC-1 [(prototype of the DC-2 and DC-3)], perhaps the most important element of the legacy of the Rockne crash, and a tribute in a very real way to Knute Rockne's death in a Fokker F-10A on a Kansas hillside so many years ago.
Reagan, Ronald, President of the United States (and former sportscaster during Rockne's career), Remarks at the Unveiling of the Knute Rockne Commemorative Stamp at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, March 9, 1988, online at the Reagan Presidential Library web site at: http://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speeches/1988/030988a.htm
Excerpts:I know that to many of you today Rockne is a revered name, a symbol of greatness and, yes, a face now on a postage stamp. But my generation, well, we actually knew the legend as it happened. We saw it unfold, and we felt it was saying something important about us as a people and a nation. And there was little room for skepticism or cynicism; we knew the legend was based on fact.
I would like to interject here, if I could, that it's difficult to stand before you and make you understand how great that legend was at that time. It isn't just a memory here and of those who knew him, but throughout this nation he was a living legend.
Millions of Americans just automatically rooted for him on Saturday afternoon and rooted, therefore, for Notre Dame.
Now, of course, the Rockne legend stood for fairplay and honor.
But you know, it was thoroughly American in another way. It was practical. It placed a value on devastating quickness and agility and on confounding the opposition with good old American cleverness.
But most of all, the Rockne legend meant this -- when you think about it, it's what's been taught here at Notre Dame since her founding: that on or off the field, it is faith that makes the difference, it is faith that makes great things happen.
* * *
Rockne once wrote: ``Sportsmanship means fairplay. It means having a little respect for the other fellow's point of view. It means a real application of the Golden Rule.''
* * *
Rockne stressed character. He knew, instinctively, the relationship between the physical and moral. ... Rockne believed in competition, yet he did not rely on brute force for winning the victory. Instead, he's remembered as the man who brought ingenuity, speed, and agility into this most American of sports.
* * *
Because of his tremendous success in sports, it's easy to forget that he was something else as well, something not too many people knew about him. He was also a man of science, having taught chemistry here at Notre Dame for 4 years.
* * *
Rockne exemplified the American spirit of never giving up.-------
[Ironically, among his remarks, that day, conservative Reagan -- government deregulation being one of the chief policies of his administration -- made a fleeting nod at the virtue of airline deregulation:"Not only deregulation, but design and technology have made our airlines more efficient"...arguably rejecting (implicitly) longstanding government policy that had been instituted in response to the crash that killed Rockne, to prevent further such tragedies. Reagan, instead, returned government aviation priorities from safety to efficiency. Various other efforts of his administration would exemplify this reversal, including the firing of most of the nation's air traffic controllers to crush their union, "PATCO" (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization), when it battled with him over pay and safety-related issues. Reagan also allowed the rise of loosely-regulated, high-fatality "commuter" airlines, and reduced some major crew-and-aircraft safety requirements for major airlines. This was consistent with his handling of other federal safety-oversight functions, most famously eliminating nearly all of OSHA.]See...Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), "1980s," from "A History of Pride: 70 Years of Pilots Putting Safety First," on the ALPA website, online at: http://cf.alpa.org/internet/accomplishments/safety/1980.html
Schalch, Kathleen , "1981 Strike Leaves Legacy for American Workers", National Public Radio, August 3, 2006, online at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5604656
Sumwalt, Robert, Vice Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), “Independent Aircraft Accident Investigation Agencies,” Remarks to Chief Aircraft Accident Investigators Programme, of Air Accident Investigation Bureau of Singapore, and Singapore Aviation Academy, August 22, 2007, Singapore, Republic of Singapore, onlne at: http://www3.ntsb.gov/speeches/sumwalt/rls070822.htm
U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, selected articles from the official U.S. government-sponsored Centennial of Flight website, online at:
http://www.centennialofflight.gov
Topics:
"Accident Investigation" - online at: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/accident_invest/POL17.htm
"Fokker and His Aircraft" - online at:
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Air_Power/Fokker/AP7.htm"Trans World Airlines (TWA)" - online at: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/TWA/Tran14.htm
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