An Icy Thanksgiving Week Tragedy
Some stories are so sad you never forget them
Every reporter remembers certain dates that stand out because of stories that affected them or stuck with them in some way. Dates like October 4, 1979, when the pope came to town. July 10, 1993, when a flood knocked out the Des Moines Water Works for 12 days.
November 25, 1985 is one of those dates for me. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving. I’d spent the day reporting a story that I DON’T remember and was sitting in the newsroom about 5:40 waiting to front my story in the six o’clock newscast. There had been freezing rain that afternoon. I nearly fell earlier in the day. Suddenly, the police scanners crackled to life. People were calling dispatch about a helicopter crash on Des Moines’ west side. Power was out in the neighborhood so it must have hit power lines on the way down.
I didn’t wait for instructions from the desk. I grabbed a photographer and ran out the door. Arriving on scene, it was dark and so slippery I had trouble staying upright. At the end of a normally quiet residential street lay the smoldering ruins of an airplane – not a helicopter. It was upside down, the nose smashed into the base of a tree. There had been a recently doused fire and smoke rose into the icy night sky.
The plane looked tiny. I thought to myself, maybe one or two people inside at most. We set up and started reporting live.
Shortly after 6:30, sports director Pete Taylor, who was also the play-by-play voice of the Iowa State University Cyclones, started hearing rumors that a university-owned plane carrying female cross country runners was overdue at the airport.
The rumors were true. Inside the plane were seven people who did not survive - three female cross country runners, two coaches, a trainer and the pilot. They were on one of three university aircraft returning from the NCAA cross country championships in Milwaukee earlier that day. Two planes made it. The third did not.
The women’s team had departed Milwaukee on an emotional high. Beating all expectations, they finished second in the country. All they wanted to do was fly home and start Thanksgiving festivities with their families. Due to terrible weather, the pilots diverted to Des Moines rather than land at the smaller airport in Ames. The pilot radioed the tower that the plane was experiencing turbulence. Air traffic controllers told him to climb. The pilot’s final, haunting words: “I can’t do anything. I’m in the trees.”
Some stories are so incredibly sad you never forget them. There was the horror of the crash scene, the young lives lost on a day that should have been a day of jubilation. There were the passengers from the other two planes waiting at the airport wondering why their teammates hadn’t arrived, and the dawning realization that they weren’t going to. It was a cold, icy night. Not a good night for anyone to be walking around much less flying. And here in a neighborhood of nice homes, a machine fell from the sky three days before Thanksgiving, shattering families and a university community.
I did many follow up stories over the next months, interviewing family members and following the NTSB investigation into the cause of the crash, which was pinned on ice build up slowing the plane down, causing it to stall.
I’ve returned to the scene many times, mostly because we have friends who live on that block. A few times I’ve gone there on November 25th at about 5:40 p.m. to stand quietly and pay my respects. It doesn’t take long to conjure up feelings from that night. The only visible sign of the tragedy is a monument installed a few years ago on a hill overlooking the intersection where the plane crashed. I had to brush off the snow last week to read the plaque.
The utility pole you see in the crash picture at the top of this story is now striped with ISU’s cardinal and gold, along with the number 98, which was how many points the women’s team scored that day - second only to national favorites Wisconsin.
Journalists head to work every day never knowing what the day might bring. Most stories are routine and fade in the memory banks. Some are thrilling, like the visit of the Pope. Some are urgent because a city doesn’t have water to drink. Some just break your heart.
Video of my follow up story the day after the crash is available at KCCI.com.
Iowa State University produced an excellent documentary, Forever True, in 2019 on the 34th anniversary of the plane crash. It’s a compelling story about the victims, their teammates and their families.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative “Office Lounge” will be open this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, for a Zoom between writers and paid subscribers to any of our Substack columns. It’s a monthly benefit for paid subscribers, who will receive a separate email with the Zoom link. I’ll be moderating on Friday. Come join us!
Thank you for this story and for keeping the runners in our hearts.
Thank you for sharing this tragic story. We should all appreciate each day that we are given. Also, show kindness and appreciation for others.