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PASSINGS: Frank Rudy, Albert Scanlon, Knut Magne Haugland

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Frank Rudy

Inventor of Air Sole technology

Frank Rudy, 84, whose idea to put air-cushioned bags in the soles of shoes became Nike’s Air Sole technology, died Dec. 13 at his home in Calabasas, his family said. No cause of death was provided.

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“Frank Rudy holds a singular place in the pantheon of Nike innovation,” Nike President and Chief Executive Mark Parker said in a statement. “His relentless creativity and focus on solving problems was in many ways the template for how Nike pursues performance to this very day.”

Rudy worked in the aerospace industry for Lockheed and Rockwell before quitting in 1969 to be an independent inventor. He approached Nike in 1977 with his concept and worked with the company to refine the technology. A timeline of the company on Nike’s website described Rudy’s invention as “durable bags filled with pressurized gas that compress under impact, then spring back.”

Marion Franklin Rudy was born Jan. 24, 1925, in Cleveland. He graduated from the Case Western Reserve University engineering school in 1950.

Rudy had more than 250 patents, his family said.

Albert Scanlon

Soccer player in ’58 plane crash

Albert Scanlon, 74, a former Manchester United soccer player who was one of the survivors of the 1958 Munich air disaster, died Tuesday, the club announced. He had been hospitalized since October in Salford, England, with a kidney ailment and pneumonia, according to the Manchester Evening News.

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Scanlon, one of the “Busby Babes” who earned their nickname for being trained through the youth system and playing for the first team under manager Matt Busby, made his debut for United in 1954 at 19.

The club won the 1956 and ’57 league titles with Scanlon as an inside forward before a plane crash in a blizzard at the Munich airport Feb. 6, 1958, killed eight of his United teammates and three officials on their way back to England from a European Cup match in Belgrade.

Scanlon recovered from a broken leg and fractured skull to score 16 goals the next season and help United finish as runner-up in the English league.

He scored 35 times in 127 matches for United before leaving the club in 1960. He later played at Newcastle, Mansfield and Lincoln before retiring in 1966.

Born in Hulme, England, on Oct. 10, 1935, Scanlon was a dockworker and night watchman after his soccer career ended.

Knut Magne Haugland, the last of six crew members who crossed the Pacific Ocean aboard the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki, died Friday of natural causes in an Oslo hospital, Kon-Tiki Museum Director Maja Bauge said. He was 92.

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-- times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com

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