© 2024 KMUW
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Wichita Remembers: Proclamation For 50th Anniversary Of Piatt Street Crash

Carla Eckels

A public ceremony is planned for Friday afternoon in Wichita to mark the 50th anniversary of the Piatt Street plane crash.

As KMUW’s Deborah Shaar reports, Wichita’s mayor issued an official Proclamation during Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

Mayor Carl Brewer designated Friday, January 16, 2015 as the Piatt Street Plane Crash 50th Year Remembrance.

Credit wichita.gov
Mayor Carla Brewer, Dr. Carla Lee and Council member Lavonta Williams announce the proclamation at a city council meeting.

“I call upon the people of Wichita and McConnell Air Force Base to mourn and to give tribute to those who lost their lives," Mayor Brewer says. "To honor those who violently fought the fires to rescue the living.”

30 people were killed in 1965 when a fully loaded KC 135 tanker crashed into the neighborhood near Piatt Street and 21st Street minutes after take-off from McConnell Air Force Base.

Council member Lavonta Williams lived on Piatt at the time, and says she was grateful to finally meet the person several years ago who saved her brother that day.

“He was severely burned and someone unbeknownst to us took him to the hospital and we really credit that person with saving his life,” she says.

A public ceremony and tribute to the crash victims is planned for 3pm today at the Piatt Street Memorial Park Monument.

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.