Fifty years ago, tragedy struck the Wichita State football program. As a plane carrying 26 student-athletes, athletic officials and some fans traveled to Logan, Utah for a game against Utah State. The group would never make it to Utah.
The plane crashed into a mountainside in Colorado, killing 31 people on board. Only eight players and the co-pilot survived the crash.
In the days after the crash, then-President Richard Nixon wrote a letter to the WSU community expressing his condolences.
“Mrs. Nixon and the members of my traveling party join me in expressing our deepest sympathy to the families of those who were killed in this tragic accident and also to you and to the members of the Wichita State community,” Nixon wrote.