Tuesday, December 13, marks the 45th anniversary of basketball's greatest airplane tragedy. On this day in 1977, an Air Indiana Douglas DC-3 crashed shortly after take-off from Evansville airport. On board was the men's team of the local university, the Purple Aces. There were no survivors. Twenty-nine people died, including all 14 players and coach Bobby Watson.
Evansville, Indiana's third-largest city, was and still is a basketball town, as is the state as a whole. The University, despite its small size, had great moments of glory between 1959 and 1971, when it won five NCAA Division II national titles. In those days, getting a ticket to an Aces game was almost impossible.
Things got even more complicated when, for the 77-78 academic year, the team earned a spot in Division 1. They would compete with the great American universities, with the competition fierce. Their record at the time was 1-3 after losing in the last game to Larry Bird's Indiana State University.
Arad McCutchan, the legendary coach and native of Evansville had vacated his place to Bobby Watson. He was the chosen one after the dismissal of Jerry Sloan, a University alumnus who would later reach the NBA coaching the Chicago Bulls for three years and the Utah Jazz for a further 23.
The new coach decided that, since they were among the elites, they would abandon the bus trips and charter a plane for their travels, even for short 200-kilometre distances like from Evansville to Nashville, the destination they were supposed to reach that fateful day.
The sum of human error
The model of plane chosen was a Douglas DC-3, a twin-engine propeller plane designed in the mid-1930s. This particular one chosen by the Aces had been flying since 1941 and was considered an antique, although the model had long proven its reliability. On the afternoon of December 13, 1977 the plane crashed with the report from the National Transportation Safety Board stating that the accident was due to human error.
It was raining and foggy outside and at times it was thought that the trip would not be possible. The plane arrived at Evansville airport late and the crew were desperate to make up the lost time. They boarded the passengers quickly meaning that the 283 kilograms of luggage were not distributed in the correct manner, being placed mainly towards the tail. This was the first mistake. The second was that, in the rush, someone forgot to remove the gust locks on the right aileron and rudder before take-off. According to reports, the plane could have stayed in the air with one of the two mistakes.
With both, impossible.
Only 90 seconds of flight time
At 7.20 p.m., the pilots were cleared for take-off. The flight lasted just 90 seconds. With limited mobility, the plane made a left turn, then began to descend, hit the tops of some trees, climbed slightly and turned right before crashing to the ground, scattering passengers, luggage and fuselage. In addition, the fuel began to burn.
The rescue operation was swiftly launched, but it was not easy to access the crash site, which was close to a ravine, railway tracks and very muddy terrain. Before the fire brigade arrived, neighbors were alerted by the noise near their homes. They were the first to see the sports bags and realize that the plane was carrying the Aces, their local idols.
A cruel twist of fate
For that particular trip, coach Watson decided that all 14 available players would go, with David Furr, a first-year player who would be out for the season with a serious ankle injury, being the only exception. Two weeks later, in a macabre twist of fate, he and his brother were killed in a car accident on their way home from a basketball game.
Furr's name was included alongside those of his teammates on a monument erected at the University. It is a fountain made up of 29 pipes, one for each victim, which tries to resemble a crying ball. On one granite slab is a message of hope from the then president of the university.
"From the agony of this hour we shall rise".
Another says: "In memory of those brave and devoted men who gave all they had, even their lives, to the sport and the university they loved".
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