Ed Plopa and John Straka, sophomore members of the Wichita State football team, sat safely in their seats on an airplane that just landed in Logan-Cache Airport, Logan, Utah, Friday, Oct. 2, 1970.
Those were the last truly peaceful moments the two Canon-McMillan High School graduates would have for some time.
As they waited to exit the plane and begin the process for preparing to play Utah State the next day, they both saw an assistant coach emerge from the cockpit and walk toward them.
The coach stopped, gained everyone’s attention, and informed those on board that the plane carrying the Shockers’ starting players, head coach Ben Wilson and his wife, the athletic director and his wife, along with the team’s trainer, other administrators and several boosters to Logan, had crashed in the mountains in Colorado.
The plane had been dubbed the Gold plane for that…
