Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Days earlier, the Aces had played against Larry Bird and Indiana State. The aircraft lost control and crashed shortly after lift-off. “He enjoyed going to school and playing his sports. It remains the deadliest single-aircraft accident without survivors. “Whenever he made it back from college to see me play, I always felt like there was a celebrity in the stands.” Former Jeffersonville coach George Marshall said Frey and Winburn were “always together.” It was hard for us to talk to parents that way,” he said. “The people around here could not have been better,” she said.

The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is a single-aisle airliner designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company.

Winburn played with Frey in junior high, high school and at Evansville. Winburn said Tony was pursuing a business degree at Evansville and looked forward to finishing school in the spring and starting a family some day.

Tony Winburn could have graduated that spring, but decided to stay one more year at the university and continue to play basketball, former Jeffersonville basketball standout Jeff Frey said. She played in a game against Jeffersonville just days after the crash.

In addition, the three crew members and 11 other persons were among the dead. “We were admonished not to confirm anything until everyone was identified. To date, the crash remains the deadliest one in Irish territory. The only member of the Purple Aces who did not die in the crash was David Furr; he was out for the season with an ankle injury and thus was not on the plane that day. This time they went to the studio and said there was a radio report that the plane was carrying the Evansville basketball team. Low 66F. More than $350,000 dollars was donated to the university, Graves said. The Purple Aces were on their way to Tennessee to play the fifth game of their young season and last of the fall semester. On Dec. 13, 1977, an airplane carrying the University of Evansville basketball team took off on a foggy and cold winter evening. Four people initially survived the crash, but three died at the scene and one passed away hours later at the hospital. The Air Indiana Flight 216 crash occurred on December 13, 1977, at 19:22 CST, when a Douglas DC-3, registration N51071 carrying the University of Evansville basketball team, crashed on takeoff at the Evansville Regional Airport in Evansville, Indiana. Advertisement Continue reading the …

Frey said he and Winburn would hang out even in the off-season, taking canoe trips on Blue River or going to Colorado with Marshall for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes conference. It is also the first fatal and deadliest crash involving the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, as well as the deadliest aviation accident to occur in France.

Former NAHS assistant coach Louie Jensen said that he arranged for a tryout with Evansville late in Miller’s senior year. He and his wife attended the players’ funerals over the next week. Peay remembers hearing ambulances rush past her apartment that evening. There were no survivors. The aircraft lost control and crashed shortly after lift-off. Loss of control may be the result of mechanical failure, external disturbances, aircraft upset conditions, or inappropriate crew actions or responses.

The NTSB report said that the plane might have been able to stay airborne had only one of the problems existed. “I accidentally slid down a hill because it was so muddy and started tripping over debris from the crash. The university offered full scholarships to the siblings of the players and paid for their funeral expenses, Graves said. The rescue effort was going on and they were trying to find survivors,” he said.

Aircraft are not designed to be flown in such circumstances, however a small number of pilots have had some success in flying and landing aircraft with disabled controls. It was the last major piston engine-powered transport made by Douglas, being developed shortly after the earliest jet airliner—the de Havilland Comet—entered service and only a few years before the jet-powered Douglas DC-8 first flew.

The plane was on its way to Nashville International Airport, taking the team to play the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders.

''At 7:30 it came on again. Tony Winburn In aeronautics, loss of control (LOC) is the unintended departure of an aircraft from controlled flight, and is a significant factor in several aviation accidents worldwide and the leading cause of jet fatalities worldwide. A memorial has been constructed at the University of Evansville known as the “Weeping Basketball.” On stone slabs are engraved the names of the members killed in both the plane crash as well as the student killed in a car accident two weeks after the crash. We never had any problems.

The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 is an American wide-body airliner manufactured by McDonnell Douglas.

At the time, Flight 981 was the deadliest plane crash in aviation history until 27 March 1977, when 583 people perished in the collision of two Boeing 747s in Tenerife. Rainfall near a half an inch. When he returned home, his wife told him of the accident.