NON-GROUNDED
"I don't know who signed the plane off, but they took the airplane," Long told DOC investigators. "Nobody was safe in that aircraft."
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March 31, 2021 marks the 90th anniversary of the plane crash that killed Knute Rockne on the Kansas plains. The following is an excerpt from “As God’s Witness: The Death of Knute Rockne” depicting the back story of events leading up to the plane’s takeoff.
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Three days prior to the crash, Anthony Fokker "personally inspected this plane" and signed off on the air ship's safety, DOC investigators stated in the Aeronautics Branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce's official accident investigation report.
Fokker approval on his product's safety condition was business as usual. The Fokker F-10A Super Trimotor wooden-structured, wooden-winged aircraft operated with a payload of 12 passengers with three 425-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Wasp engines that could hit 154 miles an hour at top speed. Like all aircraft designed by the famous airship designer, the Fokker F-10A was said to be among the safest planes in the world during the late 1920s.
The military begged to differ.
Three months prior to the Rockne crash, the Fokker F-10 came under intense military scrutiny in the wake of extensive testing at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. U.S. Army and Department of Commerce engineers revealed a suspect wooden wing structure that, when reaching a speed of 80 miles per hour, caused the plane to "fly like a duck."
"The plywood-covering checks in very good shape," wrote Dillard Hamilton, a National Parks Airways inspector, in a letter to Gilbert G. Budwig, director of Air Regulation for the Aeronautics Branch. "But I always worry about the spars and internal bracing. That is covered up where one cannot check."
Hamilton noted that a representative from Fokker's factory suggested adjusting the F-10's "allerons," or control surfaces on the wing, to "relieve tail heaviness." But Hamilton remained concerned that an adjustment – which entailed rigging the angle of alignment – might cause the pilot to lose control during a turn in bad weather.
Budwig replied: "We are not familiar with the factory recommendation... and do not believe that such rigging will correct tail heaviness. In view of the turning characteristics which you describe, it would be advisable to rig the allerons in the normal manner."
Further concerns arose when U.S. Navy officials summarily rejected the Fokker F-10A on two separate occasions during additional military testing in early 1931. The Navy's rejections prompted the Aeronautics Branch to announce intentions to ground the Fokker F-10A after Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, chief of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, made it known that a trial board ruled the F-10 "unstable" following a flight test at the Anacostia naval air station on January 15, 1931.
But the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce took no immediate action. The Fokker F-10 remained in the air.
“Six passengers were manifested, only half filling the 12-place cabin…” retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel Boardman C. Reed wrote in the January 1989 issue of “Vintage Airplane” magazine, “but one had a change of plans at the last minute. Knute Rockne took his place.”
Rockne was traveling on the overnight train to Kansas City when the Transcontinental Western Air Express Fokker F-10AF-1 NC 999E flew into Kansas City from Los Angeles. The plane was scheduled to be turned back to retrace its route to Los Angeles as "Flight 5" the next morning, March 31.
TWA mechanic E.C. "Red" Long thought better of putting the plane in the air on his signature. Long had inspected the plane a few days before and found "... the wing panels were all loose on the wing. They were coming loose and it would take days to fix it, and I said the airplane wasn't fit to fly."
Long refused to sign the log. But an unknown TWA supervisor pulled rank on the mechanic by claiming the company needed the plane in service.
"I don't know who signed the plane off, but they took the airplane," Long told DOC investigators. "Nobody was safe in that aircraft."
That morning, TWA Flight 5 was supposed to depart Kansas City Municipal Airport at 8:30 a.m. The plane remained on the ground for 45 minutes to wait for a late shipment of mail. According to the investigation report, “… the airline removed four seats from the rear of the plane and replaced it by a mail bin." The late-addition mail bin was filled with 28 pouches that weighed 95 pounds.
“I don’t know who signed the plane off, but they took the airplane,” Long told DOC investigators. “Nobody was safe in that aircraft.”
"Would that have any effect in balancing?" one investigator asked in the DOC official crash investigation report. "If Govt. or private inquiry shows that the airline was negligent, what penalty can the govt. inflict on the airline?"
TWA employees would not have protested if Flight 5 had stayed grounded under mechanic Red Long’s order. In the wake of drastic salary cuts outlined in the DOC investigation, pilots and mechanics were ready to walk off the job with morale among all employees “shot” after the company cut the pay of pilots “about 30%” with “no warning or notice,” lead investigator Leonard Jurden wrote in a letter to Gilbert Budwig.
"Due to this condition and then the accident, morale sagged even lower and nerves ragged," Jurden noted.
Red flags all over Kansas City Municipal Airport that March 31, 1931 morning begged the question: Why was Fokker F-10A Flight 5 allowed to take off?
The TWA flight mechanic had refused to sign off on the plane’s structural safety. A last-minute ticket transfer had put Knute Rockne aboard as a passenger… meaning, the TWA supervisor who overruled Red Long at the last minute knew that one of the most beloved sports figures in the country was potentially in danger of traveling on a plane that had already been determined by the military and TWA to be structurally unsafe.
Then, takeoff was delayed for 45 minutes to await the arrival of a late mail shipment. Four passenger seats were removed to make space for a bin filled with 95 pounds of mail.
Weather conditions were cold, cloudy and iffy. And TWA employees were ready to walk off the job over sudden salary cuts.
Somebody wanted that plane carrying Knute Rockne in the air.
& As God’s Witness: The Death of Knute Rockne
— Chapter 17 —
An Al Capone Offer Martha Refused
Al Capone occasionally traveled to the small town of Mishawaka, Indiana to conduct business. The Midway Lunch, a local watering hole tucked on 4th Street in a predominantly Belgian neighborhood, had been renamed from Martha’s Midway Tavern & Dance Hall to avoid any law enforcement eyes that followed prohibition during the 1920s.
Al Capone arrived at the Midway Lunch with his usual dozen roses for the owner, Martha Antheunis.
The notorious Chicago bootlegger occasionally traveled to the small town of Mishawaka, Indiana to conduct business. The Midway Lunch, a local watering hole tucked on 4th Street in a predominantly Belgian neighborhood, had been renamed from Martha’s Midway Tavern & Dance Hall to avoid any law enforcement eyes that followed prohibition during the 1920s.
Midway Lunch served chicken for 25 cents and “near” non-alcoholic beer for a nickel. But it was what Martha cooked up in her backyard that drew customers. After checking for strangers or police, Martha would stroll back to her garage, fill a glass with her homemade moonshine, tuck it in her apron, then return inside and serve her regulars.
Capone was no stranger. He was, in the words of Martha’s daughter, Albertina, “nice, friendly, good looking, considerate, and all the nice adjectives.” Whenever he showed up at the Midway, he brought flowers for the owner.
On this day, Capone walked in with a dozen roses – and an offer of a business opportunity.
“Let me sell your hootch in Chicago,” he said. “You could make a lot of money.”
Martha was flattered by the offer. But she knew better... she declined politely.
“I only keep it for the neighbors,” Martha replied. “I want to keep it small, it’s just for my neighbors.”
Later, when Martha relayed Capone’s offer to her husband, Cyriel, the street-wise tavern owner admitted the blunt truth for her refusal.
“There’s no way I’m going to do business with that man,” she said.
Capone would return to the Midway often, always with a dozen roses. Today, Capone’s picture is prominently displayed in the front window shrine that exhibits the rich history of what has become a Mishawaka landmark and a national stopping point for the greatest blues artists in the country.
An offer Capone made that Martha refused was never brought up again.
The Day Indians Discovered Rockne
Rockne, however, learned early-on that American Indians could be the first to offer welcoming comforts to lost immigrants in spite of the atrocities they endured on their own land.
He was a 5-year-old boy fresh off the boat with his Norwegian-immigrant family and didn’t know one word of English.
Suddenly, young Knute Rockne found himself lost in the massive crowd of the Chicago Exposition celebration.
“When my dad was elated by an award for his carriage at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, he failed to check my curiosity,” Rockne recalled of the experience depicted in “Rockne of Ages.” “I wound up in the midst of a sort of miniature Indian reservation.”
The day was three years removed from the Wounded Knee massacre and the height of the government’s forced relocation of Native Americans onto reservations. If any group had a reason to ignore a little lost tow-headed boy, it may as well have been the American Indian of 1893.
Rockne, however, learned early-on that American Indians could be the first to offer welcoming comforts to lost immigrants in spite of the atrocities they endured on their own land.
“The contrast – between me, a white-haired Nordic fresh from the homeland and the jet-haired Indian papooses – must have struck some Indian chief as odd,” Rockne wrote. “A weary policeman passing by the make-believe reservation beheld a blonde-head ringed in feathers bobbing through a noisy mob of Indian kids wielding a wooden tomahawk and yelling for scalps.”
Rockne dressed as a Native American for a theater production at Notre Dame
The cop gathered young Rockne and returned him to his “puzzled parents.” What could have been a tragically frightful experience for a young boy left an indelible impression the legendary coach carried with him for the rest of his life.
“I’ve held Indians in affection and high esteem ever since that childhood adventure,” Rockne maintained.
One would stand above all as the greatest football player Rockne ever witnessed.
“In a review of my playing career, one hard day stands out above all others,” Rockne admitted, “the day I was playing professional football and tried to stop Jim Thorpe.
“My job was to tackle him, which I did two times successfully, but with much suffering. After the second time, Thorpe smiled genially at me. ‘Be a good boy,’ he said. ‘Let Jim run.’”