Saturday marks the 70th anniversary of the day the United Air Lines Flight 629 exploded over Weld County, killing 44 before crashing and spreading debris east of Longmont, an event that will be memorialized at an event on Saturday in Denver.
Now, 70 years later, Philip Bearly remembers the explosion “like it was yesterday.” Bearly, who was 5-and-a-half years old at the time, remembers driving to his grandmother’s birthday celebration at 17th Street and Main Street in Longmont when he saw a flash.
“… it was as bright as daylight,” Bearly said in an interview.
The DC-6B aircraft leaving Denver exploded on Nov. 1, 1955, when a dynamite bomb went off 11 minutes into the flight. The plane’s wreckage landed below on more than 6 square miles of beet fields in the Longmont area. The explosion killed 44 people on board, becoming the deadliest act of mass murder in Colorado history.
Nearly 400 Weld County residents sprang into action to search for survivors and protect the bodies from looters until authorities arrived.
In May 1956, a jury found 23-year-old Jack Graham guilty of the crime as he had placed explosives in his mother’s luggage before she boarded the flight. Investigators determined Graham sought to cash in on a $37,500 insurance policy on his mother’s life. Graham was executed in January 1957.
Philip Bearly, a 5-year-old first responder
“For a dumb, little 5-and-a-half-year-old kid, I remember that like it was yesterday,” Bearly said.
After his family saw the plane explode, Bearly’s father, Clayton, immediately took the family to the scene of the incident.
“Something terrible has happened,” Bearly, now 75, remembers his dad saying. “They’re going to need help.”
Upon arrival, Bearly, his mother, older brother and younger sister all sat in the car, headlights shining on the wreckage. Clayton was in the fields keeping looters out of the wreckage.
A law enforcement friend of Clayton’s gave him a spare gun at the crash scene. That officer posted him at the corner of one of the sites and told him to tell folks he had orders to shoot looters.
Bearly and his family didn’t get home until about 1:30 a.m. that night.
Over the two days that followed, Clayton, who managed the nearby truck stop Johnson’s Corner, cooked as many meals as he and his staff could to feed the first responders. The National Guard arrived a few days later to take over feeding responders.
To this day, Bearly has a letter the Colorado State Patrol head wrote his dad back on Nov. 22, 1955, thanking him for his help.
Seventy years later, Bearly wants Coloradans and Americans alike to know about Flight 629, its impact and its history. He also wants people to honor the 44 victims and the many first responders — including his dad — who didn’t hesitate to lend a hand to those in need.
“As Americans, that’s what we do. We help each other,” he said. “Don’t hesitate. Step up and help. Be a part of the solution.”
Bearly, who lives in Campion, also hopes to see a memorial on the land where the plane crashed, commemorating the lives lost and those who helped. He has worked with the nonprofit Flight 629 Memorial and hopes that it meets its goal of opening a monument to the flight on its 75th anniversary in Firestone.
Conrad Hopp, whose family farm became a crash site
Conrad Hopp, 88, still struggles to talk about the aftermath of Flight 629 crashing in his family’s fields outside Firestone.
“We didn’t have time to feel how it felt,” Hopp said in an interview.
Hopp was 18 years old when debris from Flight 629 landed on his farm, he said. He remembers looking for bodies after the plane fell, and that some of the bodies that fell from the plane landed directly in his fields, creating dead spots in the next summer’s hay yield.
He also remembers walking through his fields and stumbling upon the plane’s tail and knowing immediately that the crash wasn’t an accident when he smelled the dynamite used to blow up the plane mid-flight.
Hopp, who has lived in the area his whole life, remembers his younger brother making it out of the house and into the fields despite being told to stay inside. The young boy stumbled upon a body and screamed out, Hopp said.
Those are only some of the reasons why Hopp’s family resolved not to talk about what happened.
Hopp said knowing a memorial event to honor Flight 629’s victims and the first responders is planned for Saturday in Denver has helped him feel better since the explosion, after years of feeling the pain of living with witnessing such death and destruction.
“It means a lot,” Hopp said. “Showing respect for the survivors at this time is important.”
The Denver Police Museum will dedicate the memorial to the 44 victims and the first responders at the Old Stapleton Airport Tower, where Flight 629 originated, according to a press release.
Other memorial events on Saturday include the Denver City and County Building being lit in blue on the nights of Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 to commemorate the flight and a 7 p.m. symposium at the University of Denver to discuss what happened to the plane and how it changed the American judicial system.
The public is welcome to attend the memorial dedication at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Old Stapleton Airport Tower on Uinta Street in Denver.