Harrell states in his piece that the panels were “all loose on the wing” and that the flight mechanic refused to sign off to let the plane take off in the first place. An unknown supervisor however pulled rank and signed the plane into service, clearing it for takeoff.
Roughly an hour after takeoff is when the incident occurred as the plane fell out of the sky, killing everyone aboard, including Rockne.
From Harrell:
Newspapers across the country quoted teenager Edward Baker saying he heard the plane “explode in the air” and “spin in flames” as it crashed to the ground in a pasture on his father’s remote Kansas ranch.
“Looking up, the youth saw an airplane burst into flames and rocket toward the earth,” the Sedalia (Mo.) Democrat reported that afternoon.
In a story from the South Bend Times-Review that ran on January 7, 1933 and is referenced by Harrell:
“an unimpeachable source” had said that the Secret Service was investigating a bomb as the cause of the crash.
“The bomb . . . was intended to snuff out the life of the Rev. John Reynolds of Notre Dame University, who was a witness to the gangland execution of [Jake] Lingle,” a wire story reported.
Reynolds gave more detail to the incident at 92, shortly before his death, and in his eyes saw no other cause than the mob.