-Written by Seán P. Duffy with research by Erin Rothenbuehler
Notre Dame and Wheeling Linked by Tragedy
Eighty-nine years ago today, on March 31, 1931, a Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10 commercial wood-frame airplane crashed in a remote cow pasture near Bazaar, Kansas. All eight people on board, including six passengers and two pilots, were killed.
The tragedy included a series of coincidences that forever united the fates of two very different men.
One was legendary Notre Dame football coach, Knute Rockne, who was killed on his way to Hollywood to participate in the production of the film The Spirit of Notre Dame.
And the other was the humble son of a “truck gardener” from Wheeling, West Virginia.