Ten years ago today, reigning U.S. Open golf champion Payne Stewart and five others perished when the private plane in which they were traveling became incapacitated in mid-air and crashed in a South Dakota field.
That Monday morning, I was working in Golfweek magazine's Orlando newsroom when word arrived that air-traffic controllers had lost contact with Stewart's plane. With its windows iced over and its occupants unresponsive, the Orlando-to-Dallas flight veered off course before running out of fuel and crashing in the Great Plains early that afternoon.
When I first heard about the runaway plane, I felt a chill like none I had ever experienced. I hoped against hope that Stewart and his fellow travelers would somehow survive. But by the time the plane nosedived to its final resting place, I was resigned to tragedy. With a pit in my stomach, I worked late into the evening editing Golfweek's coverage of Stewart's mind-boggling death.