DENVER (KDVR) — Exactly 70 years after their loved ones departed on an ill-fated flight from Stapleton Airport in Denver, relatives gathered at the site of the former airport to witness the unveiling of a monument dedicated to the victims of the bombing of United flight 629.
Descendants of the 44 killed on Nov. 1, 1955, as well as relatives of the FBI agents, police, first responders and prosecutors connected to the first-ever act of sabotage on a U.S. commercial airliner, were on hand for the unveiling Saturday afternoon.
Among the featured speakers at the program was Susan Morgan of Sonoma County, California. Her parents, Stewart and Suzanne Morgan, were both killed in the bombing.
“Since that bomb went off, I’d had the sense of being alone, different from normal people. I had become that scary term: an orphan,” Morgan said.
“For my first time in 70 years, the private has become public as I stand here telling you my story. I think in cases of deep grief, you lose the dead and you lose whoever you were in relation to that dead person. You lose your own identity,” Morgan said.
Flight 629 exploded in a fireball over a Weld County farm field 11 minutes after takeoff, brought down by a dynamite bomb placed in the suitcase of passenger Daisie King of Denver by her own son, John “Jack” Gilbert Graham, who was trying to collect on her life insurance. He was executed at the state penitentiary in Cañon City, months after a murder trial that garnered for him unprecedented international publicity.
All the while, the names of those killed were barely known.
This weekend’s events, organized in large part by Michael Hesse and the Denver Police Museum, were aimed at giving long-overdue recognition to those killed, and bringing together those who share a common and tragic bond.
“That sense of something shared in this group is a remarkable feeling. It is almost like what I imagined it would feel like to belong,” Morgan said,
In addition to the memorial at the tower in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood, there’s also an effort underway to build a monument near the spot in Weld County where the plane went down.
Anthony Sutton is a business strategist and writer with a passion for management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. With years of experience in the corporate world, he shares insights on business growth, strategy, and innovation through management-opleiding.org.
