SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Sixty years ago today, Cal Poly experienced an unwanted, unexpected and unfathomable first.
On October 29, 1960, a twin-engine Curtiss Wright Super C-46F Commando, a World War II surplus military transport plane, crashed shortly after takeoff from Toledo Express Airport in northwest Ohio, killing 16 Mustang football players, the student manager, a team booster and four others, including both pilots.
Twenty-six other passengers survived — 19 players, all four coaches, the team physician and the flight attendant. Telegram-Tribune sports editor Johnny Nettleship recovered from his serious injuries as well.
The Cal Poly accident grabbed national headlines as it was the first crash of a chartered plane carrying an entire athletic team and, at the time, it was the worst sports air disaster in history.
Among the 16 players who died, survivors included five wives and nine dependent children.
Of the 19 Cal Poly players and four coaches who survived, just 10 remain alive today. Only nine players are still with us after Jim Fahey, who coached wrestling at two junior high schools for 30 years, died in Gilroy four months ago. The lone coach still alive is Walt Williamson, who served as an athletics director and head track and field coach at Cal State Los Angeles for many years and currently is on the faculty at Alabama School of Mathematics and Science.
Seemingly with every anniversary story of the Cal Poly plane crash are the interviews with the survivors. Gil Stork, longtime educator and a sophomore center on the 1960 squad, and Carl Bowser, a fullback who coached football in the Bakersfield area for over 30 years and guided Bakersfield College to the 1988 national title, have carried the mantle as the unofficial spokesmen of the team.
