Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.
INITIAL ALERTPhone
Approximate reconstruction·254 chars
[Aircraft N81PF, a Beechcraft King Air 200, has gone down in a field near Strasburg, Colorado. No distress call was received from the crew before the crash. Adams County Sheriff and Colorado State Patrol are responding. Notify Oklahoma State University.]
This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.
The crash occurred at approximately 6:37 PM CST (5:37 PM MST) on January 27, 2001 in a field near Strasburg, Colorado, about 40 miles east of Denver
NTSB investigator Arnold Scott later confirmed there was no distress call from the crew before the crash
The aircraft was one of three planes carrying the OSU basketball traveling party home from Boulder, Colorado after a loss to the Colorado Buffaloes
Adams County Sheriff and Colorado State Patrol were the first agencies on scene; weather at the time included blowing snow and reduced visibility
UPDATEPhone
Approximate reconstruction·313 chars
[Coach Eddie Sutton, Oklahoma State head basketball coach, is calling. There has been a plane crash. The aircraft carrying members of the Cowboy basketball program returning from Boulder is down near Strasburg, Colorado. There are no survivors. I am calling personally to tell you. Please tell me how I can help.]
This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.
Head coach Eddie Sutton personally called the families of all ten aboard the night of the crash, by his own account in the O'Colly's 20th anniversary retrospective
In Stillwater, OSU basketball players and family members gathered at the basketball office at Gallagher-Iba Arena as the news spread
There was no official campus-wide announcement system to broadcast the news; OSU students learned primarily from local Stillwater radio (KSPI, KGFY), Tulsa television (KOTV, KTUL), and word of mouth
ESPN broke the story nationally at approximately 9 PM CST on January 27, 2001
FOLLOW-UPWebsite
Approximate reconstruction·693 chars
[Oklahoma State University announces with profound sadness the deaths of ten members of the Cowboy basketball family in last night's plane crash near Strasburg, Colorado. Players Daniel Lawson and Nate Fleming, staff members Will Hancock, Pat Noyes, Brian Luinstra, Kendall Durfey, and Jared Weiberg, broadcaster Bill Teegins, and pilots Denver Mills and Bjorn Fahlstrom are confirmed lost. There are no survivors. Counseling services are available to students at the Student Union starting at 8 AM. A campus memorial service will be held at Gallagher-Iba Arena. Flags will be lowered to half-staff on the OSU campus. Further information will be posted on okstate.com as it becomes available.]
This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.
OSU posted an official 'Air Tragedy Claims 10' statement on okstate.com on January 27-28, 2001; the page remains archived as part of the Remember the Ten memorial
OSU President James Halligan held a press conference on the morning of January 28, 2001 at Gallagher-Iba Arena to formally address the campus and media
A campus-wide memorial was held at Gallagher-Iba Arena on January 31, 2001; an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 mourners attended
The phrase 'Remember the Ten' was adopted as the permanent designation of the tragedy; every January 27, the OSU library bells toll ten times and a moment of silence is observed at the next home basketball game
Context
Background
The Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball team plane crash is the deadliest non-football athletic disaster in modern U.S. college sports history and a case study in pre-modern campus emergency notification. On the evening of January 27, 2001, ten members of the OSU men's basketball program — two players, six staff and broadcast personnel, and two pilots — were returning to Stillwater from a road game at the University of Colorado in Boulder aboard a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 (registration N81PF) operating as one of three aircraft carrying the traveling party. At approximately 6:37 PM CST (5:37 PM MST), the plane crashed in a snowstorm in a field near Strasburg, Colorado, approximately 40 miles east of Denver. There were no survivors. The NTSB later attributed the crash to the pilot's spatial disorientation after equipment and instrument failure in the snowstorm. The campus learned of the crash not through a formal alert system — none existed in 2001 at OSU — but through local Stillwater radio stations, Tulsa television (KOTV, KTUL), national breaking news on ESPN at approximately 9 PM CST, and head coach Eddie Sutton's personal phone calls to the families of those aboard. In a 2021 O'Colly retrospective, Sutton described making each of those calls personally as the defining moment of his coaching career. OSU President James Halligan formally announced the deaths in a campus statement on the morning of January 28, 2001, and a memorial service was held at Gallagher-Iba Arena on January 31. The phrase 'Remember the Ten' was adopted as the permanent designation of the tragedy; every January 27, the OSU library bells toll ten times and a moment of silence is observed at the next men's basketball home game. The case sits in the archive as the clearest illustration of pre-2008 university notification: a major mass-casualty event involving members of the campus community, communicated to the campus by phone tree, local TV, radio, ESPN, and word of mouth — with no SMS, email, or web-based emergency broadcast.
Analysis
Key Findings
01Ten members of the Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball program killed when their Beechcraft Super King Air 200 crashed in a snowstorm near Strasburg, Colorado at approximately 6:37 PM CST on January 27, 2001
02Head coach Eddie Sutton personally telephoned the families of all ten aboard the night of the crash; the campus learned through local radio and TV, ESPN, and word of mouth
03Oklahoma State had no SMS, email, or web-based mass-notification system in January 2001; the okstate.com website was the only campus-wide channel
04The NTSB attributed the probable cause to the pilot's spatial disorientation resulting from failure to maintain manual control with the available flight instruments in snowstorm conditions
05OSU adopted 'Remember the Ten' as the permanent designation of the tragedy; the OSU library bells toll ten times every January 27 and a moment of silence is observed at the next home basketball game
Outcome
All ten aboard killed: players Daniel Lawson and Nate Fleming; sports information director Will Hancock; director of basketball operations Pat Noyes; trainer Brian Luinstra; student manager Jared Weiberg; broadcast engineer Kendall Durfey; play-by-play broadcaster Bill Teegins; pilot Denver Mills; co-pilot Bjorn Fahlstrom. The NTSB determined the probable cause was the pilot's spatial disorientation resulting from failure to maintain manual control of the aircraft with the available flight instruments. The phrase 'Remember the Ten' became an annual OSU tradition; the OSU library bells toll ten times every January 27 and a moment of silence is observed at the next men's basketball home game.