1960 Minneapolis Lakers cornfield landing
Douglas DC-3 · Forced landing
From St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. to Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 23
- Survivors
- Unknown
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Unknown
Douglas DC-3
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-3
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- Unknown
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.To Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1960 Minneapolis Lakers cornfield landing was an aircraft incident where a Douglas DC-3 carrying 23 people, including the coach and players of the Minneapolis Lakers, made an emergency landing in an Iowa cornfield during a snowstorm after having gotten lost due to an electrical malfunction and poor weather. The incident has been described as the closest the United States has ever come to losing a professional sports team.
Several months after the incident, Lakers owner Bob Short moved the franchise to Los Angeles.
Incident
After a game against the St. Louis Hawks, the aircraft took off from St. Louis at around 8:30pm on January 17, after having been delayed for two hours because of weather. About 10 minutes into the flight, the plane suffered an electrical malfunction which took out the plane's heater, lighting, defroster, radio, fuel gauge, and compass amongst others. Flying blind, the pilots decided it was too dangerous to return to the busy St. Louis airport and headed for Minneapolis. Without the plane's navigational equipment, it soon got lost. Around four hours afterward, and low on fuel, the crew spotted the town of Carroll, Iowa. After circling the town a few times, looking for an airport, the pilots successfully made an emergency landing in a nearby cornfield at around 1:30am on January 18.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1960 Minneapolis Lakers cornfield landing” (revision 1363335395, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: 1960 Minneapolis Lakers cornfield landing
- Revision
- 1363335395 · 2026-07-09 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q130659829
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "1960 Minneapolis Lakers cornfield landing" (page 78092033, revision 1363335395)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- not stated in the Wikipedia article's infobox or opening paragraph
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.