70 years later, witnesses remember bombing of Flight 629 over Colorado farm field

WELD COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — A lot has changed in the seven decades since Conrad Hopp grew up on a farm east of Longmont, but his memory of what happened in rural Weld County the night of November 1st, 1955, is unaltered.

"The plane was right in here," Hopp said, pointing to two trees on the edge of a farm field.

Just 18 years old at the time, he'd spent that day harvesting sugar beets when the evening silence of the Eastern Plains was violently interrupted.

"There was a terrible explosion that sounded like all the windows in the house were coming in, and the house shook. And my brother and I ran outside, and there was a ball of fire southeast of us. And we jumped in my car. The ball of fire was coming down, and we got in behind it. And it hit the ground, and we were about one minute beh