It was supposed to be a short flight. Just a quick hop from Kinston, North Carolina, back to Huntington, West Virginia. Southern Airways Flight 932 was carrying the heart and soul of a small town. When the twin-engine McDonnell Douglas DC-9 clipped the treetops just west of the runway at Tri-State Airport, it didn't just end 75 lives. It basically stopped time in Huntington.
People talk about the Marshall football plane crash 1970 as a movie plot because of We Are Marshall, but the reality was messier. It was grittier. Honestly, it was a lot more painful than a Hollywood script can actually convey. On November 14, 1970, the Thundering Herd lost 37 players. They lost eight coaches. They lost the athletic director, the team’s radio announcer, and 25 boosters who were the financial backbone of the program.
The impact was total.
Imagine a town where everyone knows everyone. Now imagine the local college team—the thing that brings the community together on Saturdays—is just gone. Not "rebuilding." Gone.
The Night Everything Changed at Tri-State
The weather was garbage. That’s the simplest way to put it. It was misty, raining, and the visibility was poor as the charter flight approached Huntington. The pilots, Captain Frank Abbot and First Officer Jerry Smith, were trying to land a plane in conditions that were right on the edge of what was legally allowed.
Investigation reports from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) later pointed to a "descent below Minimum Descent Altitude." Basically, the crew thought they were higher than they were.
They weren't.
At around 7:36 PM, the plane struck a hill roughly a mile from the runway. It didn't slide. It didn't skip. It impacted, flipped, and erupted into a fireball that could be seen for miles. There were no survivors. None.
Finding the site was a nightmare for first responders. The terrain was rugged. The fire was intense. You’ve got to understand that in 1970, DNA testing wasn't a thing. Identifying the victims took days, weeks. Six players were never identified. They are buried together at Spring Hill Cemetery, overlooking the campus they played for.
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Why the Marshall Football Plane Crash 1970 Almost Killed the Program
Most people assume the school just dusted itself off and started playing again. That's not what happened. There was a massive, loud movement to just scrap the football program entirely.
Who could blame them?
The varsity team was dead. The coaching staff was dead. The equipment was gone. The school was grieving so hard that football felt like an insult to the memory of the deceased. Acting President Donald Dedmon was under immense pressure to shut it down.
Then came the "Young Thundering Herd."
Red Dawson, an assistant coach who wasn't on the flight because he had been on a recruiting trip, became a pivotal figure. Jack Lengyel was eventually hired as the head coach—mostly because nobody else wanted the job. Who wants to coach a team of ghosts? Lengyel did. He was a guy who saw the game as a way to heal, not just a way to win.
But there was a huge problem: The NCAA rules.
Back then, freshmen weren't allowed to play varsity football. Marshall had no varsity players left. If they couldn't play freshmen, they couldn't field a team. Period. It took a literal act of the NCAA—granting a special waiver—to allow Marshall to play with true freshmen.
The Myth vs. The Reality of the 1971 Season
The 1971 season is often romanticized. People think they came back and won it all. They didn't. They were bad. They were physically smaller, younger, and vastly inexperienced compared to their opponents.
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They lost their first game to Morehead State. It wasn't even close.
But their first home game? That was something else. Against Xavier, on September 25, 1971, Marshall won 15-13 on the final play of the game. It’s one of the most emotional moments in the history of American sports. It wasn't about the scoreboard; it was about the fact that 11 guys in green and white were standing on a field.
It proved the town hadn't died with the plane.
The Long Road to the 1990s Glory Days
It took a long time to get good again. We’re talking decades. Marshall didn't have a winning season for 14 years after the crash. Fourteen.
The tragedy of the Marshall football plane crash 1970 created a vacuum that took nearly twenty years to fill. But when it broke, it broke big. By the late 80s and 90s, under coaches like Jim Donnan and later Bob Pruett, Marshall became a powerhouse in Division I-AA (now FCS) and eventually made a massive splash in Division I-A.
Think about the names that came through Huntington:
- Randy Moss (arguably the greatest WR ever)
- Chad Pennington
- Byron Leftwich
These guys weren't just playing for themselves. They were playing in a stadium named after the victims. They were playing in a town where the fountain in the center of campus is turned off every November 14th at the exact time of the crash.
Misconceptions You Probably Have
One thing people get wrong is thinking the plane was "old" or "faulty." It wasn't. The DC-9 was relatively new technology at the time. The issue was a combination of pilot fatigue, poor weather, and a lack of sophisticated ground-based landing systems at Tri-State that we take for granted today.
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Another misconception? That the whole town was unified in moving forward. Truthfully, the rift between those who wanted to play and those who wanted to mourn was deep. It tore families apart. Some parents of the victims couldn't bear to see the green and white uniforms on the field again. It felt like a replacement, not a tribute.
It's also worth noting that the "We Are Marshall" chant didn't actually exist in 1971. That was a later development that became a rallying cry for the modern era. Back then, it was just survival.
Actionable Insights for History and Sports Buffs
If you’re looking to truly understand the gravity of this event beyond a movie screen, there are a few things you should actually do.
First, read The Marshall Story by Keith Morehouse. His father, Gene Morehouse, was the team’s announcer who died in the crash. Keith eventually became the announcer himself. It’s a perspective you can’t get from a Hollywood screenwriter.
Second, if you ever find yourself in West Virginia, go to the Memorial Fountain on the Marshall campus. It’s 13 feet tall and weighs 6,500 pounds. Every year on the anniversary, they have a ceremony where they turn the water off. It stays silent until the following spring. It’s a haunting reminder that some things are bigger than a game.
Third, look into the NTSB report (AAR-72-11). For those interested in the technical side of aviation, it’s a foundational case study in "controlled flight into terrain" (CFIT). It led to massive changes in how pilots approach airports with limited instrumentation.
The legacy of the 1970 crash isn't just about a football team that died. It's about a community that refused to let its identity be defined by a hole in the ground. They chose to carry the weight of the 75 souls on their backs every time they took the field.
Key Steps for Further Research:
- Visit the Spring Hill Cemetery memorial to see the names of the 75 victims.
- Research the "NCAA Freshman Eligibility Rule" change of 1972, which was heavily influenced by Marshall’s situation.
- Explore the archives of the Huntington Herald-Dispatch from November 1970 for raw, unfiltered local reporting from the week of the accident.
The story of Marshall is a lesson in resilience, but more importantly, it's a lesson in how a community handles an impossible loss. It wasn't a quick fix. It wasn't a "miracle." It was a slow, painful crawl back to the light.