On January 27, 2001, the Oklahoma State Cowboys played the University of Colorado Buffaloes in a mens basketball game in Boulder. Colorado prevailed 81-71. After the game, the Cowboys entourage including the team, family and friends, staffers and broadcasters boarded three planes at the Jefferson County Airport in Broomfield between Boulder and Denver for the flight home. There were two jets and a Beechcraft King Air 200 turboprop. A terrible snowstorm was affecting eastern Colorado about the time that the place departed Denver.
N81PF flew in the day before and was kept overnight in a hangar at the airport. The pilots checked the weather the next morning, learning about the threat of icing and moderate turbulence. The crew went to the game, requesting that the plane be returned to a hangar until the passengers had boarded. The passengers boarded the plane about 5:00 p.m. Utilizing an IFR flight plan, the plane took off at 5:18 p.m. After takeoff, the plane headed toward Sillwater, climbing to a cruising altitude of 23,000 feet.
Just before 5:36 p.m., the transponder on the aircraft stopped transmitting. Radar data shows that the plane deviated from its heading and started turning to the right. About 5:37:20 p.m., the plane crashed into the rolling terrain of eastern Colorado, near Strasburg, about forty miles east of Denver. Apparently, the plane’s electrical system failed about two minutes before the crash. The pilot was unable to maintain his orientation with the loss of the instrumentation, the clouds and snow and the loss of daylight. Ten people died on the plane, including two members of the basketball team and the play by play announcer. The two pilots, a broadcast engineer and five other staffers were the others that perished in the crash.
On December 13, 1977, twenty nine people including fourteen University of Evansville basketball players and coach Bobby Watson were killed when their plane crashed shortly after takeoff in dense fog from the Evansville, Indiana Airport.
On November 14, 1970, all 75 people about a charter jet carrying the Marshall Thundering Herd football team were killed when the DC-9 crashed into a rain and fog shrouded hillside near Huntington, West Virginia. The worst sports related disaster in U.S. history was recently featured in the movie “We Are Marshall.â€
A month before, on Friday, October 2, 1970, a plane carrying the Wichita State football team crashed in Colorado, killing 31 people. The plane crashed near Loveland Pass as it carried team members, staff and boosters to a game in Utah.
