70 years after the first sabotage of a US airliner, the 44 killed are finally being honored

LONGMONT, Colo. (AP) — The windows shook as dynamite aboard an airplane exploded over Conrad Hopp’s family farm in northern Colorado 70 years ago.

Hopp, then 18 years old, saw a ball of fire streaking across the night sky and rushed with his brother toward where the burning wreckage came down, dodging objects that turned out to be the bodies of victims of the first confirmed case of sabotage against a commercial U.S. airliner.

Hundreds of miles away, Marian Poeppelmeyer’s mother, pregnant with her, was at home in Pennsylvania when she learned her husband was among the 44 people killed in the bombing. She ran upstairs and held her oldest daughter tightly and screamed, Poeppelmeyer said, recounting a story told by her mother soon before she died.

Hopp and Poeppelmeyer, who recently forged