MAIL PLANE CRASHES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21300, 2 April 1931, Page 11

MAIL PLANE CRASHES

DISASTER IN AMERICA EIGHT PEOPLE KILLED (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) NEW YORK, March 31. A Kansas City message reports that Knute Rockne (football coach at Notre Dame University) and four others were killed when a Transcontinental and Western air passenger and mail plane crashed in flames to-day eouth-west of Bazaar. A later message states that the dead total eight. DEATH OF FOOTBALL COACH. GENERAL REGRET EXPRESSED. NEW YORK, March 31. (Received April 1, at 9 p.m.) A message from Bazaar, Kansas, says that two pilots and six passengers were killed in one of the worst American air disasters when a transcontinental aeroplane, which was bound for Los Angeles from Kansas City, crashed at Bazaar, the cause of which has not been determined. The tragedy was heightened by the fact that one of the unfortunate passengers was 1 Knute Rockne (“The Rock”), the brilliant football coach of Notre Dame University, whose loss is deeply felt throughout the country, for in addition to his colourful personality he probably did more than anyone else to produce and popularise the present type of American football. National honours will probably be accorded to the coach, and university presidents, students, army, and navy officials, and persons in all walks of life have expressed profound grief at his death. Notre Dame, especially, is stunned by the blow, for its football teams (“The Irish”), under Rockne’s guidance, for many seasons have won a reputation as national champions by defeating all comers with exhibitions of virtually perfect play. An official of one prominent university stated that American football has suffered a vital blow by Rockne's death, and a representative of another college said: “ Football in particular and athletics in general have lost one of the greatest educators and men builders ever known in the history of sport.”