On March 31, 1931, a Fokker F-10 belonging to Transcontinental and Western Air crashed near Bazaar, Kansas, after taking off from Kansas City Municipal Airport in Kansas City, Missouri.
The scheduled flight was from Kansas City to Los Angeles, with a stopover in Wichita. On this first leg, the wooden structure of one wing failed, causing the aircraft to crash, killing all eight people on board, including Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne.
The investigation found that the wooden wing became moist over time, causing the glue connecting the wing to the fuselage to weaken, allowing the wing to separate. The crash brought about significant changes in airplane safety and the airplane industry. The death of Rockne and the crash's effect on the public perception of the safety of aircraft contributed to its cultural significance.
The Transcontinental and Western Air flight was a Fokker F.10 Trimotor en route from Kansas City to Los Angeles on March 31, 1931. On the first leg of the flight to Wichita, the airplane crashed into an open field a few miles southwest of Bazaar; all eight on board died, including famed football coach Knute Rockne, of the University of Notre Dame.
Numerous factors complicated the subsequent investigation, resulting in difficulty establishing, with certainty, the cause of the crash. The investigation was initially undermined by a severe shortage of evidence: When government investigators first arrived at the crash site, they found that most of the wreckage had been taken by souvenir hunters and scavengers, leaving only engines, wings and propeller.
Among the issues speculated is that the craft may have been dealing with turbulence, or icing on the aircraft, or both—which could have resulted in flying conditions that may have led to control difficulty, and an overstressing of the wing. (As evidence, some cite the co-pilot's radio call to Wichita, an hour into the flight, saying, "The weather here is getting tough. We're going to turn around and go back to Kansas City.") Later theories conclude that the pilots thought their difficulty controlling the plane was due to clear-air turbulence, and the transmission was sent before they were aware of the wing's deficiency, if indeed they ever knew before the wing failed.
It is often claimed that the flight went down in or shortly after a thunderstorm, but meteorological records show that there was no significant convective activity at the time.
The late morning accident was arguably caused by the composition of the aircraft. The wings of Fokker Trimotors were made of wood laminate; in this instance, moisture had entered the interior of one wing over a period and had weakened the glue bonding the structure. One spar finally failed; the wing developed uncontrolled flutter and separated from the aircraft. In any case, the structural condition of the wooden wing is widely agreed to have been at least a significant contributory factor.
Public impact and aviation legacy
Although the accident is best known for causing the death of Rockne, it also led to major changes in American aviation that radically transformed airline safety worldwide. Other comparable crashes had occurred before, but this one, which killed a popular national hero, brought a national outcry for getting "answers to the mystery" as the public demanded solutions that might prevent such disasters in the future.
Rockne mourned and questions raised
The most notable person aboard was Knute Rockne, head football coach at the University of Notre Dame and a national hero. Revered as more than simply the football coach with the most wins to his credit of all time, Rockne—famed for coaching his players towards both victory and morality—was a beloved figure at the start of the Great Depression. Despite his Norwegian immigrant origins, he was regarded as the "All-American" icon of virtuous strength and honorable success.
Rockne, 43, was on his way to Los Angeles to participate in the production of the Hollywood motion picture The Spirit of Notre Dame (released October 13, 1931). A father of four, Rockne had stopped over in Kansas City to visit his two eldest children, sons Bill and Knute, Jr., in boarding school there at Pembroke Hill.
The sudden, dramatic death of Rockne startled the nation, and triggered a national outpouring of grief, comparable to the deaths of presidents. President Herbert Hoover called Rockne's death "a national loss." King Haakon VII of Norway (Rockne's birthplace) posthumously knighted him and sent a personal envoy to the massive funeral, held at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the Notre Dame campus. Thousands from around the world gathered at the funeral, which was broadcast around the globe.
Driven by the public feeling for Rockne, the crash story played out at length in nearly all of the nation's newspapers and gradually evolved into national demand for a public inquiry into the causes and circumstances of the crash.
Airline regulation and operations
At first, the crash brought changes to the operations of both TWA and the Aeronautics Branch of the US Department of Commerce, forerunner of the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
All Fokker Trimotors in U.S. airline service were temporarily grounded, and they were henceforth required to undergo more frequent and rigorous inspections and maintenance. The expense of this, compounded with the bad publicity associated with Rockne's death, almost sank TWA, while aircraft manufacturer Fokker suffered a serious blow to its reputation and sales.