Crazy NBA Basketball Facts You Didn't Know, 1977 Evansville Men's Basketball Plane Crash.
The
Air Indiana Flight 216 crash occurred on December 13, 1977, at 19:22 CST, when a
Douglas DC-3, registration N51071 carrying the
University of Evansville basketball team, crashed on takeoff at the
Evansville Regional Airport in
Evansville, Indiana. The aircraft lost control and crashed shortly after lift-off.
[1] The plane was on its way to
Nashville International Airport, taking the team to play the
Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders in
Murfreesboro.
The
National Transportation Safety Board blamed the crash on the pilot's failure to remove
gust locks on the right
aileron and the
rudder before takeoff, as well as an overloaded baggage compartment. The NTSB report said that the plane might have been able to stay airborne had only one of the problems existed. As it was, the extra baggage shifted the plane's center of gravity to the back end, and the locked rudder and aileron made it impossible to control the overweight aircraft.
The only member of the Purple Aces who did not die in the crash was 18-year-old freshman David Furr; he was out for the season with an ankle injury and thus was not on the plane that day. But just two weeks after the crash, Furr and his younger brother Byron were killed in a car accident near
Newton, Illinois, leaving the entire 1977 Evansville team dead.
A memorial has been constructed at the University of Evansville known as the "Weeping Basketball." On stone slabs are engraved the names of the players who were killed, including Furr. (The final name on the monument is that of Charles Goad of the Goad Equipment Company, invited on the flight by his friend Bob Hudson.) Also engraved is an excerpt from the eulogy delivered by school president Wallace Graves at a memorial service: "Out of the agony of this hour we will rise."
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