June 22, 2016
Pikes Peak Courier 5A
www.PikesPeakNewspapers.com
Too stunned to believe what they were seeing RESTLESS NATIVE Rob Carrigan robcarrigan@yourpeaknews.com
Watching the crash landing of one of the Thunderbirds a few weeks ago, and with the death of Blue Angel Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss, from Durango, on the same day, I couldn’t help but recall other air show mishaps with links to Colorado. Since the advent of airplanes, stretching nearly back to the Wright brothers, there have been air shows in Colorado. And almost since then, distinctively in Colorado, there have been air show disasters. Ralph Johnstone, who was trained by the Wright Brothers at Wright Flying School, established the pattern when he dropped from the sky to his death in front of thousands of spectators at Overland Park in Denver in 1910. Arch Hoxsey, the other half of the “Stardust Twins” as he and Johnstone were known for their exploits in Wright Exhibition Flying Team, was killed in a very similar crash about a month later on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles while trying set the altitude record. Just a few hours before
Cemetery
taking off in that effort, Hoxsey had telegrammed his condolences to the family John Bevins Moisant, who died in air crash near New Orleans the day before. Flying was hazardous in those early days. And it was still deadly 40 years later. “Flagler, Colo. – As the single-engine plane roared toward the crowd, Lyle Stone saw his parents each grab two children under their arms, jump off the low airfield fence, and run as fast as they could. Moments later, virtually everyone left on the fence was killed as the plane cut through the crowd like scythe. Twenty were killed including the pilot,” according to Kit Miniclier of the Denver Post in an article commemorating the 50th anniversary of the tragedy. Of the 20 victims, 13 were children. “Rhynold Fager remembers seeing a friend on her knees, dying, impaled by a propeller blade. Charlie Keller, whose wife and two children were killed that day, was able to identify his wife’s remains only by a birthmark on her leg.”
Today, a granite memorial with the names of those killed on Sept. 15, 1951, rests in a park across Interstate 70 from the airfield. William Barker, a Denver Post reporter who was covering the event at the time, described it this way in the Post and the weekly Flagler News the next day: “The plane crashed into the stunned mass of spectators from an altitude of less than 200 feet, cutting a bloody swath and strewing gasoline-drenched wreckage over a 150-yard area. “The chaos that followed is beyond description . . . it was like the end of the world. Bodies were everywhere. The blood was everywhere too,” wrote Barker in 1951. “I stopped as the scene ravaged my senses. Cars crushed. Bodies . . . and parts of bodies. Blood on staring faces. People milling like sheep around the fallen. Voices rising and falling oddly, without hysteria. Without panic. Stunned. Too stunned yet to believe what we were all seeing.” Flagler, a town of only 600, had a hospital, but only two doctors, John C. Straub and William L. McBride. McBride, it was said, had delivered nine of the 13 children killed in the disaster. Medical personnel from miles around soon arrived to help out. Though it was the worst, the Flagler incident was
A memorial in Flagler, Colo., reminds us of the 20 killed at an airshow on Sept. 15, 1951. not Colorado’s last air show mishap. In June of 1997, and Korean War-era F-86 fighter jet performing before a crowd estimated at 50,000 at air show in Broomfield, crashed in a massive fireball after failing to pull out
of a steep dive. Retired Col. “Smiling Jack” Rosamond, 63, the pilot of jet was the only casualty when the plane plowed into the ground 300 yards from the nearest spectators. In October of 2000,
again it was only the pilot killed, when the Russianmade Sukhoi 26X, spun out of control at the Telluride airport during an air show, crashed near the runway and burst into flames, killing pilot Kent Pfleider, of Grand Junction.
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bag after bag of flowers,” she said, her voice breaking. “And they were bags of new flowers. Not just old flowers. That really lit me up. I was mad and hurt.” Davis said police officers told her “their phones had been ringing off the hook” with similar complaints. Another person who was shocked at the overly aggressive cleanup was Sally Riley, city planning director who was overseeing the work by Keep Woodland Park Beautiful. In fact, Riley had visited the cemetery early Saturday morning to ensure volunteers respected the wishes of family members and paid attention to the signs taped to gravestones protecting them from cleanup efforts. “It was never the city’s intent to cause harm or hurt feelings with our citizens or families,” Riley said. “And we never want this to happen again.” She was at a loss to explain why signs were ignored. “The Keep Woodland Park Beautiful volunteers were provided strict instructions and guidance during the scheduled time of the cleanup,” Riley said. “Apparently, after the scheduled time, some of the volunteers took it upon themselves to remove the flowers.” Riley said she had heard from at least eight families who were upset at the way graves were cleaned. “We have been meeting with individual families since then,” she said. “We retrieved as much as we could out of the dumpster. For the rest, we are either replacing their
flowers or reimbursing them for their flowers.” McDonald’s Broncos flag also was salvaged and she will be allowed to fly it over her son’s grave on a small flagpole. Besides offering apologies, Riley had one more message for the families. “We’re reassuring them this will not happen again,” she said. The issue also surfaced Thursday night before the Woodland Park City Council when Dave Perkins, representing Keep Woodland Park Beautiful, said his organization has received several complaints about the cleanup. He said the intent of the cleanup was not to disrespect the dead or harm the living. But he suggested the conditions at the cemetery were disgraceful. City Manager David Buttery disagreed, saying the city’s burial ground has never been a formal, manicured urban cemetery. Buttery said it is a “mountain cemetery, not Arlington.” And he expressed frustration that the city’s explicit orders to volunteers were ignored. “We spent a tremendous amount of time contacting the families,” he said. “We printed 32 signs that said to leave specific graves alone. But items were removed from 12 graves that had signs. “I don’t know who did it, but they not only violated those graves, but they also violated our intent. I take full
responsibility – we will do what we can to make things right. I apologize to those who expected us to respect their mementos.”
Photo by Bill Vogrin Some plots marked with signs like this one were included in the cleanup work, meaning that some mementos were lost.
Letter to the Editor Column about affordable housing should be required reading To the Editor, I would like to thank Norma Engelberg for her very insightful and informative article regarding
low-income housing as it comes from her personal perspective and experience. It was very generous of her to share so much personal information. I wish it could be required reading for everyone in Woodland Park who shudders at the thought of lowincome housing coming to our town. If the name “low-income” was changed, perhaps
that would help do away with the negative attitude the current name carries, not just in Woodland Park, but across the country, Good luck to the community on working so hard to fill a very large void that has existed so long. Mary M. Hunsicker