I remember this tragedy well. This was when you could wait for a flight at the gate. I was early for the arrival of my sister's flight. It was Gate 13 or 14 and I watched as the passengers board this flight. When my sister arrived, we went and got her baggage. We got to the car and on the way out noticed heavy black smoke. I commented that it looked like a fuel fire. We got on the highway to go to Naperville and many emergency vehicles were going the opposite way on route to the airport. We knew then there must have been a crash. The passengers at the gate haunt me to this day. I remember seeing a father with his baby son and pray they were there to pick someone up or to watch the flight take off. I pray they were not aboard the doomed flight.
Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to look out, see the engine rip off and the plane start to bank toward the ground? It would be paralyzing unfettered fear.
Epic Yellow Friend They had a video screen setup in the main cabin that displayed the pilots point of view to the passengers......which probably made this situation worse
I wonder if people in such situations go into shock, as a wildebeest does when being taken down by lions. But even if the passengers were screaming and panicking, at least their death was instantaneous.
I fly frequently and my friends think I'm crazy because I am addicted to these types of videos and programs like Air Disaster, but it actually helps me feel better about flying because I now understand the science of it better and because after every crash the industry, NTSB and FAA take steps to ensure the same type of incident doesn't happen again.
Less maintenace would be far safer than excessive maintenance. The is a problem with airline-performed maintenance: You've got something that was assembled to perfection at the factory, and you want to, in between flights, on a very tight schedule, with the full pressure of the airline to decrease downtime, disassemble, maintain and reassemble all in some hangar somewhere performed by some mechanic, who most likely isn't the only crew touching that particular aircraft, since it receives maintenance in various locations depending on when and where it has a layover? Nope, doesn't work. I'll take a more sparsely maintained original part than a part that is disassembled and reassembled every other flight by whoever is working the graveyard shift at that airline's shop any day. Increasing maintenance frequency is the easy way out for manufacturers to please the NTSB after an incident, but it doesn't really solve anything. Maintenance performed by the airline should be reduced to the most basic tasks, and all significant maintenance and certainly all repairs should be handled by the manufacturer. And the manufacturers should be mandated to have larger maintenance intervals. That'll force them to actually redesign pieces that fail too often instead of working around the poor engineering with excessive maintenance. Also, the manufacturer should set minimum maintenance windows for each task, and that should exceed by a certain margin and with certain minimums the actual required time, as to avoid rush fixes.
712dal well you have spoiled enough life to bitch about it .... rather be eating cats and dogs like in Venasula? ...idiot ... can all ways kick rocks to a commie utopia ...oh wait there isn't any ...go figure
alma - 'You've got something that was assembled to perfection at the factory' yeah, except for the bad cargo door design if you mean the DC10... I bet you work for American Airlines.....cost cutting affects BOTH of them you know
I remember that in 1981 I was in Tulsa Oklahoma going to Spartan School of Aeronautics. We took a class trip to the AA aircraft maintenance facilities in order to see how major airlines work on their aircraft. We were instructed not to mention or even talk about the incident. An AA lead mechanic that was involved in the removal/installation of number 1 engine took his life due to all the anguish he felt for the lost of life during the crash. Very sad day for the Aviation industry in general. RIP to the passengers, crew and that anguish soul.
Anyone who's ever dealt with mechanical stuff, particularly high-stress things like planes, knows you can only do your best. I had an old Harley. You crank the bolts down, and they strip or shear the part in half. Or the fall off by the next gas stop. Same thing.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 I own a HD and I also work on mine. I was an aircraft mechanic for 24 years. I’m sorry sir but it’s not the same thing. First, there are no gas stations in the sky. If you install a part on a HD, you can always coast to a stop. When working on an aircraft you have to follow the aircraft maintenance manual exactly. When you create short cuts people will die. If something is not approved then it should not be used. That is why so many aircraft mechanics end up getting in trouble with their companies or the FAA. Just my humble opinion.
@@BsUJeTs Well said, sir. I guess I never thought about the behind the scenes of what it takes to have successful flights. That starts with the mechs doing their job's and following the manual's to the t... similar to when I was in the Navy fixing small craft engines on vessels in my harbor. No gun decking was allowed. You had to follow the instructions for fixing that vessel or things could go badly if you weren't doing what you were supposed to. It's so important for people to just do their jobs and do it correctly. These things always sadden me because they can always be avoided if people would just do the right thing, you know? No cutting corners. It's so important to NOT cut corners. Heartbreaking.😔💔
It’s amazing how much safer flying is today then back 30 to 40 years ago. There was a major airline accident several times a year back then in the United States alone. Even through the 90s there was at least one major accident a year. Now accidents are very rare worldwide.
Not very true. 2019, 2020, 2021, and even 2022 has had its share of terrible accidents. Just months ago a major airliner plane in China crashed and killed 132 people and then there was a Tara Air crash in Nepal that killed 22. In 2019 we had a Ukraine Jet crash due to being shot down and it killed 176. Even in 2021 there was a Sriwijaya airliner that crashed killing 62. Even in 2019 there was a Ethiopian airliner that crashed and killed 157. Plane crashes happen almost everyday. Even though they usually kill 1-3, that doesn’t mean it barely happens. There still is multiple plane crashes a month. And many a year. Don’t know why you think this 🤷♂️
@@Jdn__0001 because there have been less than five major plane crashes in “the west” since the year 2000 outside of 9/11 (AF447, AA587, and that’s about it as far as I know other than the one metrohet shoot down back in 2014). The developing world and China and Russia are different stories, but getting on an airplane in the United States, Canada, Europe and Mexico is nearly a sure thing now.
Lost a co-worker on this flight. Wasn't to be on it. Scheduled to leave Cincinnati to LAX via Dallas. O'Hare plane was one hour earlier, so he switched. Wanted to take kids camping. His memorial service was attended by hundreds, including senior executives of the company. Years later worked with a man in US Customs who was within several hundred feet of the plane when it crashed. Heat from burning fuel blistered the paint on his car.
A few weeks before this crash, I had flown on a DC-10 from New York to London on the old Laker Airlines. I was going to Europe for my big "two month travel abroad". I read about the crash in May and Laker Airlines only flew DC-10's so they were completely grounded and I wondered how am I going to get back. British Airways honored all Laker tickets and I flew home on a British Airways 747. RIP all those poor people who lost their lives on 191.
This crash also made it mandatory that both pilots have a shaker stick. The DC-10 had the option for the F/O to have a shaker stick, but AA opted not have it. The pilots shaker stick was powered by the left engine.
Lindsay Wagner..the actress who played The Bionic Woman in the 70s, was scheduled to be on this flight with her mom. Due to an illness to her mother, they booked another flight. I would imagine that cheating certain death changes your life. Every brand new day is a blessing after that.
Usually after a major crash, they retire the flight number. They didn't. In 1985 Delta flight 191 crashed at DFW killing most passengers. Microburst wind sheer. Please no more flight 191
Your videos are the best when you can add the raw audio files. Creates a very haunting experience. Needless great video as always. Look forward to the next.!
SHould check out the movie (made after a play) Charlie Victor Romeo--about the re-enactments of like 5 different CVR recordings, in ascending magnitude of disaster... It was riveting.
I remember this as a kid. It was the first major plane crash I ever knew of. I kept a newspaper with an eerie photo on the front page of the plane going down. I would look at it and think about what was going through the minds of those on board
*How this happened, for all that don't know, is:* When the engine separated from the DC-10, it took some hydraulic fluid lines with it, that were supposed to lock the wing's leading-edge slats in place, damaging a 3-foot section of the left wing's leading edge near the place of the failed pylon, and the aerodynamic forces that were acting on the wing at the time when the aircraft was lifting off lead to an uncommanded retraction of the outboard slats. The aircraft began to climb, and, the damaged left wing - with no engine - produced far less lift than the right wing (that had its outboard slats still deployed and its engine providing TOGA thrust). The retraction of those slats caused the stall speed on the wing to increase (from 124 knots to 159 knots), but the DC-10 was still climbing at the V2 speed (153 knots) at 14 degrees nose up following the flight directors, and therefore was 6 knots below the stall speed for that wing. Without any valid warnings that the aircraft was stalling (because the only stick shaker in the cockpit on the captains' side was cut, another fatal chain of events caused by cost cutting measures), the pilots unknowingly entered an asymmetrical aerodynamic stall. In the final few seconds, full right aileron and rudder was inputted to try and level out the aircraft, and the right engine, at that moment, which was producing a power near, but not on TOGA thrust, were one of the reasons why the plane banked so far over, to a max value of 112 degrees on its left side, and the DC-10 crashed into a former airfield (or a trailer park, maybe even a hangar as some animations show it), just outside Chicago O'Hare's airport boundaries. The 258 passengers and 13 crew members were killed in the accident, as a result of extreme force trauma, as well as 2 people on the ground, totaling 273 deaths. Even if the pilots had known that the DC-10 was entering a stall, they couldn't have saved it anyway, because 1 ) The left engine was gone, and asymmetrical thrust would have made the landing very difficult, especially with the aircraft's weight, and judging by the aircraft's condition, they probably wouldn't have made it anyway 2 ) The hydraulics were leaking, which is the green mist you probably would have seen the aircraft emitting in the photo, and without it, you're basically fucked. 3 ) The left side instruments were killed when the engine separated, so from that moment on, it would have been all on the first officer to use HIS instruments to land the aircraft Other pilots even ran a cockpit simulation of the flight to see if they could recover from it themselves, and every single person who had tried the emergency scenario had failed to land, or even recover. *Peace to the Fallen, and you guys will never be forgotten in the quest to make aviation safer than it already is.* *_5.25.1979_*
Those aircraft were and still are designed to fly with one engine however, FAA regulations at the time required three engines when over the oceans. I do agree though that with the one wing stalling, it was not recoverable...
@@devildogcrewchief3335 Maybe they would have been able to make a less fatal landing and some people would have been able to survive had the circumstances been different.
@@georgialee6755 Yeah, rest in peace to them. I edited the entire thing because I wasn't really thinking straight when I typed it, and you may see me giving a more detailed explanation of disasters in the comments section of other air disaster recreator channels.
@@gaztastic Of course, it's all speculation on our part, but I feel as though had the pilots trusted their instruments and warnings, then yes, they may have been able to have a more survivable landing/crash.
Just to clarify the crash. There was NO maintenance hanger for jets at the crash site. The crash site was in an unincorporated area of Cook County, and outside the airport boundaries. It was a repair garage for trucks / semi's. 400 W Touhy, ( a trailer park) was just yards away, and aircraft debris did hit homes there causing fire, and damage. Nobody in the trailer park died. Now most of the crash site is a storm water retention pond, as who would build here ?, but the front area, closet to Touhy ave. has new buildings there. The worst part of remembrance ,is a group that put up their own money to memorialize this, and it IS located a mile plus from the crash site. THAT SUCKS ! How do I know this stuff? I just moved into the trailer park, not even 2 weeks, and this happened. Also happened on my birthday. Have some real graphic memories of that day, as well as the succeeding months later.
Tim R I've looked up what was at the site before. Apparently it was an abandoned small airport known as Ravenswood. So the buildings that were on the site next to the trailer park you lived in where at one point hangers.
I saw flight 191 from the intersection of Elmhurst and touhy. The hangar was a leftover from the old Ravenswood airport. Airport closed soon after O'Hare opened.
Tim R: They were mobile homes, not trailers. In southern California most mobile home parks are nice places for retired older people and they get really pissed when people call their homes "trailers."
My dad saw this happen....he was flying back to Indy and had a stop in Chicago....his flight and this flight passed right by each other so they were all waving to each other....when my dads plane was starting to let people off a lady on the left side of his plane screamed "oh my god the engine fell off" my dad thought she meant their plane....he went to her window to look and watch 191 go into the hard left and then saw the fire ball.....I remember he called home and said he was ok and by then it was just coming on the tv news stations....he was also in the air on 911
I can remember my father saying "The DC-9 and the DC-10 we're great planes. They just had terrible luck." Having researched the nitty gritties of many of these fallen birds, I realize that he was right.
I was living in Chicago at the time, working as a PR staffer for the American Red Cross. When the crash happened, my boss sent me out to O'Hare to "cover" the crash for whatever Red Cross publicity we could create to raise money for the Red Cross. What they really needed at O'Hare was firefighters to put out the fire, medical people to collect the bodies and set up a morgue, and others to start cleaning up the wreckage. The Red Cross plastered red cross signs all over the fences (we couldn't get into the actual crash site) to make it look like, oh yeah, we were there, helping out. The Red Cross did what it always does: make coffee and try to look more important than the Salvation Army while telling the public to send donations to the Red Cross. Sad--and what a waste!
I don't how the "nearby Cessna" story started getting around, but the "Oh shit!" remark came from inside the tower. It's on the FAA's transcript of background chatter during the crisis, although it was transcribed as "Holy shit!" The controller's name was Edward Rucker; he was on position LC-4 (Local Control). Additionally, right after the plane crashed, he said, "Oh shit, I need to be relieved. I'm... oh, shit."
I don’t think the forklift actually ‘struck’ the pylon, causing the damage. It was simply that using a forklift to lift both the engine & pylon together and removing them as a unit, instead of holding the engine alone with a cradle and unbolting it from the pylon (the manufacturer’s specified method), caused the wrong weight distribution during the hours-long repair. This then caused fatigue cracks in the wing/pylon mount, which eventually failed. Dozens of DC-10s in various airlines that had been using the ‘forklift method’ were all found to have cracks in their wing mounts from doing this...
You are basically correct. However, the particular forklift used for this maintenance procedure had a leak in its hydraulic system. When the maintenance people went on lunch break the forklift leaked down causing the entire engine to be left hanging by the rear attachment. That's what cracked the rear pylon attachment.
The v-shaped clevis was striking the flange during positioning of the pylon to the wing. Causing cracks that worsened until they finally failed on 5/25/79.
Residents at the trailer park near where this airliner crashed right after this accident happened said they were having their doors being knocked on and the door knobs turned. When they went to open the door, there was no one there.
I have the newspaper from the next day. I worked just south and was leaving work that day. I remember all the emergency vehicles going outbound on the Kennedy expressway.
I don’t know what it was about this one but it shakes me to the core. I can’t imagine the terror they experienced before they crashed. It reminds me of flight 427 that crashed in hopewell twp Pennsylvania back in 94. I believe that one was flying out from Chicago as well. I knew a guy I worked with and he was a first responder there in hopewell and had a full biohazard suit on during the cleanup and he said it still bothered him to this day. He said there was body parts up in trees and scattered everywhere. It was horrible he said. I felt so bad for him cuz I could really see it in his eyes as he told me it and he really didn’t want to talk about it. I joined the army back in 93 and had my first flight on a plane to Ft benning, Ga for boot camp and AiT. I flew everywhere in the army and conducted night air assault ops in Blackhawk helicopters as well. I was never afraid of flying until 2008 when my wife and I were returning from Vegas and hit some of the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced in my life. The plane was dropping rapidly, the stewardesses were strapped in and looked scared even the business guys that fly all the time were worried. That was the last time I flew. I’m not saying I won’t again but it really shook me up
From the NTSB Report: "Flight 191 crashed into the open field and the wreckage scattered into an adjacent trailer park. The aircraft was destroyed in the crash and subsequent fire. Two hundred and seventy-one persons on board Flight 191 were killed; two persons on the ground were killed, and two others were injured. *An old aircraft hangar*, several automobiles, and a mobile home were destroyed."
Anyone remember the band Brothers Johnson? They were booked on this flight and got to the airport a few minutes late and missed boarding. They were standing at the gate when the plane took off.
I lived in Schaumburg just west of there. I was a 14yo playing on the corner, suddenly there was a boom that made me look to the east. Rising above the houses and still small trees in a new neighborhood was a huge, thick, black smoke cloud. I seem to remember the chemical smell as well that arrived as the smoke column lasted the entire day. A short time later when my parents came home from work we learned that it was a horrific crash at O'hare airport near Elk Grove Village, IL. I now live in Mt. Prospect, IL near the crash site. The video is inaccurate as to its crash site, which is in Des Plaines near Elk Grove Village. The plane crashed at 320 W Touhy Ave, Des Plaines, IL 60018 into the edge of a trailer park 4680 feet northwest from the end of runway 32R. The crash site is not developed to this day and remains an empty field except for a Police K-9 dog training facility on Touhy Ave. The crash site is the field behind the K-9 Training Building.
Thank you for your story. I was seven years old at the time, but I lived in Florida and don't remember this because I was a little kid. 🙂 But, I have since heard of this and other tragic stories like it and they all break my heart. 😔💔 I'm sure you will never forget this.
Rob Churchill , I lived in Mount Prospect at the time. It was about 3:00-3:15 on a clear Friday afternoon. I lived off Golf Road near Busse. I saw the black smoke out our living room window and said to my mother there was an oil fire and figured it was the tank farm that fueled the airport. I remember in was eerie driving past and looking out at that field and avoided the area as it bothered me too greatly. Was it Touhy? I thought it was Oakton.
I wonder how many passengers at the airport saw this as they sat waiting for their own flights, returned their tickets and went home. No way would I get on an aircraft after just seeing that.
TedBronson1918 Yeah, I would have been TOOOOOO shaken. I would have flown again but it would have been a LONG time before I did and after some serious counseling.
ss, no, they collected $25 million for their 'profitable negligence'.......just like the triangle factory fire building owners cashed in on their greed ( locking fire exits) in a fire that killed over 100 women.....deliberate negligence, maybe
I remember this well........I was flying out of O'hare on this day my flight had just left a few minutes before flight 19....,In fact I just flew into O'hare and back out last week..
Someone wrote a comment about the unmitigated fear inherent in knowing you're about to die. With American 191 and other crashes that occur with little warning close to the ground, especially after take off, there's little time to process or order one's thoughts. In one sense that's probably a good thing, dying quickly, with no time to allow the terror of the situation to sink in. But then, I can also imagine a different mindset. Accepting one's situation and being at peace with dying. This would be the mindset of the minority, I'm sure, especially when you consider that everything leading to the flight, even on that day, was about getting to one's destination, whether people were going home, or on holiday, doing business, visiting friends and family. Minutes earlier they were thinking about having a drink and relaxing and now this. But some will accept it, either through being at peace with death anyway, or their brains simply responding differently.
something about planes with a 3rd engine embedded in the tail just freaks me the fuck out. maybe since I watch a ton of these videos and that's just such a noticeable feature but still...
This crash had nothing to do with the tail engine though. And most other infamous dc10 crashes were because of a faulty cargo door design. That third engine on the tail actually made the plane more reliable and able to fly over oceans (because ETOPS laws wouldn't allow 2 engines to hop ponds at the time)
Funny, to me that middle engine seemed like an insurance policy in case one of the wing engines went bad. But then I was introduced to triples on the L-1011, still my favorite commercial jet of all time.
That's strange, the Boeing 727 is one of my favorite aircraft, due to the 3 aft engines! (Reminds me of a rocket!) It's actually even safer, as the balance more central and tri-jets are a second-generation aircraft with handling much easier if you should lose an engine, and the newer high-bypass turbofans are quieter and more powerful. Other tri-jets include the Hawker Siddeley Trident, Tupolev Tu-154, Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, and, more recently, the Dassault Falcon 7X, but IF IT'S NOT BOEING, I'M NOT GOING is a long-time mantra of mine so it's not easy for me to switch, but I do like Lockheed's 1011! (There is just one thing though, I wish engineers could design aircraft so that the hydraulics are NOT in the very back of the plane!) I know the tail should be the safest in theory, but when something happens and hydraulics are lost, the aircraft stands little chance of landing safely, even with exceptional airmanship of the pilots.
The prosecutor for the States Attorney investigating John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was having dinner at a cafeteria near O'Hare when this crash happened. He sped to the site and participated in identifying the bodies. That was a helluva winter for him.
I remember having a flight scheduled on United from Seattle to DC right after the crash on a United DC10. I switched to TWA (which I still distinctly remember) proclaimed they "do not fly DC10s".
TWA had Lockheed L-10-11's, which were essentially the same thing, but different. Yeah, TWA, Delta, Eastern.....they weren't hurtin' for certain when the FAA grounded the DC-10.....
@@chooch1995 Very different and very well designed aircraft. Similar engine layout, but the center engine in the rear of the fuselage rather than high in the tail. Lockheed also built the aircraft like it was for the military, well laid out and easy to maintain. Shame it had a short life, it was an amazing plane.
"All used a faster and cheaper way to conduct the repair" There are three ways to do things: Fast, Cheap, and Right but you can only pick two, excluding the remainder.
This channel is so much better than "Flight Channel". No ridiculous sappy music drenched over top of the horrific crashes. Just a simple, no frills account of what happened.
The lowest of low bosses I ever worked asked me to travel from Philadelphia to Detroit to look at a property for a business deal. This was in early June of 1979. I found out the plane I was the fly was a DC-10 that had yet to be grounded due to the Chicago crash. A real slimeball was Harry Shapiro, President of Strick Trailer who basically ordered me to make the trip. Fortunately, the DC-10's were grounded before my flight and I got to fly on another aircraft.
42 years later I will bet he's still a shitbag, retired and now President of some Homeowner's Association in Florida. I knew people like that. You read their obituary and tears roll down your face.......from laughing so hard. I got stranded in Venezuela when all DC-10 traffic was grounded. 8 days of waiting in lines at Maracaibo Airport to get to Anywhere, USA. I finally was the last to board a resurrected beat up Boeing 707 to get to Miami. I was booked on AA191 the day it crashed....Albany to Chicago to LAX... but changed my plans shortly before the cab picked me up. I went to our office in Schenectady instead. My parents were expecting me home to LA and thought I had been killed. They were beyond freaked when I called to say I wasn't coming home. I was unaware of the crash until they told me to turn on the TV. The crash has been intertwined in my life in some weird ways since 2001 when I met a lady whose roommate was a Flight Attendant who died on 191. She thinks the girl's spirit put us together. Many times, I thought she was right. I flew all over the world for GE back then and the DC-10 was one of my favorite planes.
I heard a overheard conversation about this a long time ago, something about a mechanic nicknamed “forklift Larry”. He was the mechanic using an unapproved technique to change engines.
You might as well do all the 191s now (or at least the other main two) DA191 and Comair 191. There's also X15 Flight 191 (1967), Prinair Flight 191 (1972) and I remember almost spitting out my food when I saw Jet Blue 191 make the headlines in 2012. Man last year in China I was on a flight 1191, almost kissed the ground when that one landed successfully.
@@friendlysky7674 I suppose one three digit number had to be infamous. I'm sure there were thousands of 191 flights that went off without a problem and even more 9/11 calendar dates that held little significance from any other day. That said I'd rather avoid that flight number.
A couple of the DC-10 crashes were due to Cargo door coming off causing explosive decompression. This crash was due to stress of the pylon assembly of the #1 (wing) engine. This was caused by an incorrect maintenance procedure. According to manufacturer instructions, when removing the engine for servicing , slings were supposed to be used to support it. AA and other carriers were using forklifts. They figured out after this accident that doing it this way was stressing out the Pylon assembly. The DC-10 was subsequently grounded worldwide as the found stress fractures on DC-10s throughout the industry. This had to be corrected before they could fly again.
Actually it was a little more involved than that. The correct procedure was to remove the engine from the pylon first and then remove the pylon from the wing. What they were doing to save time was to remove the engine and pylon mated together as a unit. Further, forklifts are not designed to do this type of work. The forklift used to do this particular maintenance task had a slight leak in its hydraulics. When the maintenance people went to lunch it leaked down, which left the engine and pylon hanging only by the rear attachment point. The stress of that was what cracked the attachment faring.causing the engine to eventually come loose and go up over the wing.
@@joevignolor4u949 Right, but they had to ground all DC-10s in the aftermath of this accident when they found stress cracks in other DC-10s if I remember correctly.
@@rvalderas1 - True. Who knows how all the other engine/pylon assemblies were lifted. However, it seems that knowledge of the alternative unauthorized procedure may have traveled through the grapevine to different airlines and it included using forklifts, which were not intended for this type of procedure.
It was more than just the time saving (translation: money saving) maintenance issue. It was wilfully ignoring the manufacturer who sent the airlines memos: don’t do an engine swap like that. The cheaper procedure was to take the engine off with the pylon still attached, rather than the way McDonnell Douglas recommended-engine and pylon separate. Also, during that particular engine change, the forklift shifted, and a loud bang was heard as internal structure was damaged. A shift change occurred mid-engine swap, and there was no communication between the shifts regarding the damage or the forklift shifting. As for the actual failure, the engine did just what it was designed to do in the event of a failure like that-it flipped up and over the top of the wing. Unfortunately, all of the hydraulic lines that fed the flaps on the left wing were routed through the leading edge, and they were all severed. The #1 engine also powered the instruments that could have told the crew the status of the flaps and their uncontrolled retraction. You can see it in the iconic photo of AA191 as it is rolling left...the flaps are retracted and hydraulic fluid is streaming from the wing. As unbelievable as it sounds, if the hydraulic lines hadn’t severed, or if the procedure (AA changed the procedure post accident, I believe) had been better, or even if the crew was able to understand exactly what was happening to their aircraft (the wing mounted engines weren’t visible from the cockpit, IIRC, so the crew never knew they lost the entire engine mount), it was possible to survive that incident.
Joey You said it all correctly. Howe er the investigators also found cracks in other AA planes and two in Continental who also ignored the instructions. United ignored it as well but they used an overhead crane instead of a forklift
Call it a false sense of security, but this is the main reason why I feel safe flying in an Air Force aircraft any day. NO aircraft leaves the ground for the sake of being cheap. Not only that, but aircraft maintenance and inspections are a 24 job.
The real shame is that other pilot's later demonstrated under simulation that the situation may have been recoverable had the crew not followed procedure and slowed the aircraft down to the recommended engine out speed resulting in a stall, roll and pitch down. I think the crew may have figured that out if they had more time. At 500 AGL time was not on their side. I can't even imagine what that passenger cabin sounded like when the passengers realized they were really going down. May the Lord have mercy on their souls.
The later simulations showed the plane as survivable only if the crew knew the engine had been torn off and resulting damage to systems. Since the crew had no way to know it was judged unsurvivable.
So you're telling me that they could have still flown without hydraulics on the left wing? I don't believe that they could, but if they could then please inform me.
@@adoriousgravy8033 they theoretically could have if they knew what happened. They did some flight sim reenactments and even with them knowing they only had like 5% chance saving it (1 out of 20 tries didnt result in complete loss of life). This was years ago where I read this so those numbers might be wrong, I'll have to find it again.
I and a friend were westbound on the Kennedy Expressway right there as the smoke started to rise. It must have been within a minute of the crash. At the time we thought it was an explosion in the fuel tank farm, you can see these from the road and in this simulation out the cockpit as the plane is going down. Big thick black cloud rising. It could have easily come down in the middle of a dozen huge fuel tanks.
It was also common practice at the time to show live feed of the take off from a "plane's eye view" to the passengers. They watched it happen in front of them, which is just horrifying to me. Since this crash, the practice ceased.
Well actually with the DC 10 they would show the plane crashing on take off, like in the movie airplane ! This in order to desensitize people to the DC-10..
This is not so. All throughout the 80's I rode on airlines that showed takeoffs and landings on a big screen. I doubt anyone was watching anything on this flight while being subjected to tremendous G forces.
The DC-10 Was the most deadly aircraft in 1980-1995 Now its the safest plane, unfortunately it was taken out of service and now used for cargo planes, Rip DC-10
Not even close the DC 10 and it's variants have the third worst safety record in the industry after the the F28 and the 707. The L1011 on the other hand is comparable to the latest modern jet liners...
I'm not calling anyone here a liar, but how is literally everyone in the comment section related to this flight? I'm also aware this crash happened 43 years ago today. May 25, 2022 May 25, 1979.
I lived in suburban Chicago and remember this well. The plane DID NOT crash into a hangar on the airport edge. It crashed on the other side of Northwest Tollway(I-90) in a small field very close to a fuel tank farm that supplied O'Hare airport and destroyed a few mobile homes in a trailer park. It crashed off Oakton Blvd and there was nothing left but tin foil so to speak. Shame and a real horror!
Tom Johnson is correct. www.dailyherald.com/article/20111014/news/710149919/ ruclips.net/video/3buaNpr23a0/видео.html (@10:45) Delta Flight 191 - 1985 (Lockheed L1011) lessonslearned.faa.gov/ll_main.cfm?TabID=1&LLID=32&LLTypeID=2
Correct me if I’m wrong.. but the procedure was to bring the thrust to idle and enter a steep climb? In other words, the procedure for losing an engine is to stall?
My guess is both deadlines and costs. We talk about saving money by cutting corners, but I've also read about maintenance related crashes where the plane had to be ready to fly in mere hours, thereby forcing the technicians to do rush jobs. Its a terrible shame.
Speaking as someone who is scared shitless of flying, and around Christmas is tipped to take only my second flight since the ‘80’s, I really enjoy your channel.
One guy on this plane that died only didn’t fear death for sure and his name was Itzhak Bentov. You can find his amazing video on YT where he explains how the reality works and that we still live in the spiritual worlds after death without a physical body. He Astral Traveled with his soul while alive and explored higher worlds, you can read his book Stalking the Wild Pendulum.
I’m just as disappointed that the pilots decided to PULL UP with REDUCED THRUST. If you have reduced thrust I would’ve thought that pulling up would have been the last thing to do. Sure this plane would’ve crashed pretty hard too if they didn’t pull up at all, but I would’ve thought that crashing more horizontally wouldn’t have destroyed the plane as much
Granted, they didn’t know that an entire engine just blew off as there wasn’t any warnings or any alarms to signify that, the pilots only knew that they had lost power to an engine, they most likely thought that the engine was still intact but had stopped working. It’s because of that that they followed standard procedures and attempt circle around the airport and land (which had it simply been a failure of an engine, would’ve been the better choice than aborting the take-off after already lifting with little runway left).
The people that make these aren't pilots and they sometimes put misinformation into the video. The pilots did not reduce thrust. The engine out procedure that they followed at that time said that if an engine fails the pilots should reduce speed to V2 which was 153 knots with the flaps and slats extended. The speed of the DC-10 was 172 knots so the crew slowed to 153 knots at a rate of 1 knot per second. Unfortunately with part of the left slat retracted the crew didn't know that the stall speed was now 159 knots. When they slowed below that speed they stalled and ddin't have enough altitude to recover. There was no stick shaker on the first officer's control column and the electrical wiring to the captain's stick shaker and slats disagree light ran off the number 1 engine and was ruptured as well as the hydraulic line. Good pilots, lousy situation.
And this is the major reason why I choose not to fly. If I can't drive or go by boat, Michael Curtis doesn't go. My grandmother used to say that if God wanted us to go to the moon, he'd built a road and if God wanted us to fly, he would have provided us with wings.
I wonder IF American Airlines was made responsible for the deviation from maintenance protocol and had to reimburse the people who died. It WAS American Airlines FAULT that it happened because the corporation wanted to save some money!
I lived in Chicago at the time of the 191 crash and had just gotten my drivers licence ..... a friend and I decided to take a ride in that direction the next day ........from the road, we saw hundreds of small wooden stakes with colored flags in a large field near the crash site.......I am guessing they marked pieces of the wreckage and bodies....
I went to college with a girl who lost her parents on that flight, poor girl was so distraught as you could imagine.
It's a 50/50 shot every time.
I remember this well, I was just getting out of High School in Michigan.
So was she hot?
Alex Caruso Oh shut up.
@Brian bruh many ppl go to college dumbass
I remember this tragedy well. This was when you could wait for a flight at the gate. I was early for the arrival of my sister's flight. It was Gate 13 or 14 and I watched as the passengers board this flight. When my sister arrived, we went and got her baggage. We got to the car and on the way out noticed heavy black smoke. I commented that it looked like a fuel fire. We got on the highway to go to Naperville and many emergency vehicles were going the opposite way on route to the airport. We knew then there must have been a crash. The passengers at the gate haunt me to this day. I remember seeing a father with his baby son and pray they were there to pick someone up or to watch the flight take off. I pray they were not aboard the doomed flight.
Amazing story, thank you.
That would have been prior to about 1990. I worked at an airport when SRV died. That's how I remember.
Thanks for sharing that story.
I remember this tragedy as well, and 6 weeks later my Dad traveled to Los Angeles from O'Hare on American Airlines.
Wow
Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to look out, see the engine rip off and the plane start to bank toward the ground? It would be paralyzing unfettered fear.
Epic Yellow Friend and my grandpa died in this before i could meet him:( not lying search it up, Jack Moncrieff)
Epic Yellow Friend They had a video screen setup in the main cabin that displayed the pilots point of view to the passengers......which probably made this situation worse
Epic Yellow Friend I'd shit MY pants!!
oh really? omg! so sad to hear
I wonder if people in such situations go into shock, as a wildebeest does when being taken down by lions. But even if the passengers were screaming and panicking, at least their death was instantaneous.
I've got to stop watching these...I'll never be able to get on a plane again!
I fly frequently and my friends think I'm crazy because I am addicted to these types of videos and programs like Air Disaster, but it actually helps me feel better about flying because I now understand the science of it better and because after every crash the industry, NTSB and FAA take steps to ensure the same type of incident doesn't happen again.
LoL, I said the same thing!
@@EAMHawkeye WAIT SAME I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE.
Me too 🤦♀️🤦♀️
@@EAMHawkeye iam exactly the same , my kids think iam crazy watching these vid.but i need to understand where and how things go wrong.
271 lives lost just to save a few dollars.
kushikun story of America
Story of humans
yes, and far more people die in automobiles for the same reason
kushikun What were the consequences for American Airlines?
273 lives lost
It's pretty sad the amount of crashes and emergencies occur because of improper maintenance try to cut cost.
Less maintenace would be far safer than excessive maintenance. The is a problem with airline-performed maintenance: You've got something that was assembled to perfection at the factory, and you want to, in between flights, on a very tight schedule, with the full pressure of the airline to decrease downtime, disassemble, maintain and reassemble all in some hangar somewhere performed by some mechanic, who most likely isn't the only crew touching that particular aircraft, since it receives maintenance in various locations depending on when and where it has a layover? Nope, doesn't work. I'll take a more sparsely maintained original part than a part that is disassembled and reassembled every other flight by whoever is working the graveyard shift at that airline's shop any day. Increasing maintenance frequency is the easy way out for manufacturers to please the NTSB after an incident, but it doesn't really solve anything.
Maintenance performed by the airline should be reduced to the most basic tasks, and all significant maintenance and certainly all repairs should be handled by the manufacturer. And the manufacturers should be mandated to have larger maintenance intervals. That'll force them to actually redesign pieces that fail too often instead of working around the poor engineering with excessive maintenance. Also, the manufacturer should set minimum maintenance windows for each task, and that should exceed by a certain margin and with certain minimums the actual required time, as to avoid rush fixes.
Thoreaufare was
Thoreaufare Just Capitalism at work 😂
712dal well you have spoiled enough life to bitch about it .... rather be eating cats and dogs like in Venasula? ...idiot ... can all ways kick rocks to a commie utopia ...oh wait there isn't any ...go figure
alma - 'You've got something that was assembled to perfection at the factory' yeah, except for the bad cargo door design if you mean the DC10... I bet you work for American Airlines.....cost cutting affects BOTH of them you know
I worked with a guy once that flew on this exact plane on the flight before this one, he said it haunted him for years
Go broncos
wow he really dodged a bullet. to bad almost 300 people still died though.
I remember that in 1981 I was in Tulsa Oklahoma going to Spartan School of Aeronautics. We took a class trip to the AA aircraft maintenance facilities in order to see how major airlines work on their aircraft. We were instructed not to mention or even talk about the incident. An AA lead mechanic that was involved in the removal/installation of number 1 engine took his life due to all the anguish he felt for the lost of life during the crash. Very sad day for the Aviation industry in general. RIP to the passengers, crew and that anguish soul.
Anyone who's ever dealt with mechanical stuff, particularly high-stress things like planes, knows you can only do your best.
I had an old Harley. You crank the bolts down, and they strip or shear the part in half. Or the fall off by the next gas stop. Same thing.
@@windsofmarchjourneyperrytr2823 I own a HD and I also work on mine. I was an aircraft mechanic for 24 years. I’m sorry sir but it’s not the same thing. First, there are no gas stations in the sky. If you install a part on a HD, you can always coast to a stop. When working on an aircraft you have to follow the aircraft maintenance manual exactly. When you create short cuts people will die. If something is not approved then it should not be used. That is why so many aircraft mechanics end up getting in trouble with their companies or the FAA. Just my humble opinion.
@@BsUJeTs Well said, sir. I guess I never thought about the behind the scenes of what it takes to have successful flights. That starts with the mechs doing their job's and following the manual's to the t... similar to when I was in the Navy fixing small craft engines on vessels in my harbor. No gun decking was allowed. You had to follow the instructions for fixing that vessel or things could go badly if you weren't doing what you were supposed to. It's so important for people to just do their jobs and do it correctly. These things always sadden me because they can always be avoided if people would just do the right thing, you know? No cutting corners. It's so important to NOT cut corners. Heartbreaking.😔💔
It’s amazing how much safer flying is today then back 30 to 40 years ago. There was a major airline accident several times a year back then in the United States alone. Even through the 90s there was at least one major accident a year. Now accidents are very rare worldwide.
There hasn’t been an airliner crash in the US since 2009. It’s impressive.
Not very true. 2019, 2020, 2021, and even 2022 has had its share of terrible accidents. Just months ago a major airliner plane in China crashed and killed 132 people and then there was a Tara Air crash in Nepal that killed 22. In 2019 we had a Ukraine Jet crash due to being shot down and it killed 176. Even in 2021 there was a Sriwijaya airliner that crashed killing 62. Even in 2019 there was a Ethiopian airliner that crashed and killed 157. Plane crashes happen almost everyday. Even though they usually kill 1-3, that doesn’t mean it barely happens. There still is multiple plane crashes a month. And many a year. Don’t know why you think this 🤷♂️
@@Jdn__0001 I believe they are talking about the US alone.
@@aracelyguerrero360 They said very rare “ worldwide “. Meaning they think plane accidents in general are rare, which once again, isn’t true at all
@@Jdn__0001 because there have been less than five major plane crashes in “the west” since the year 2000 outside of 9/11 (AF447, AA587, and that’s about it as far as I know other than the one metrohet shoot down back in 2014). The developing world and China and Russia are different stories, but getting on an airplane in the United States, Canada, Europe and Mexico is nearly a sure thing now.
Lost a co-worker on this flight. Wasn't to be on it. Scheduled to leave Cincinnati to LAX via Dallas. O'Hare plane was one hour earlier, so he switched. Wanted to take kids camping. His memorial service was attended by hundreds, including senior executives of the company. Years later worked with a man in US Customs who was within several hundred feet of the plane when it crashed. Heat from burning fuel blistered the paint on his car.
What was his name? I’m sorry for your loss.
A few weeks before this crash, I had flown on a DC-10 from New York to London on the old Laker Airlines. I was going to Europe for my big "two month travel abroad". I read about the crash in May and Laker Airlines only flew DC-10's so they were completely grounded and I wondered how am I going to get back. British Airways honored all Laker tickets and I flew home on a British Airways 747. RIP all those poor people who lost their lives on 191.
This crash also made it mandatory that both pilots have a shaker stick. The DC-10 had the option for the F/O to have a shaker stick, but AA opted not have it. The pilots shaker stick was powered by the left engine.
What made this even worse was I believe AA training Manual told them to get further from the ground as possible
Which is why the plane climbed even steeper which led to the stall and the banking to the left
Lindsay Wagner..the actress who played The Bionic Woman in the 70s, was scheduled to be on this flight with her mom. Due to an illness to her mother, they booked another flight. I would imagine that cheating certain death changes your life. Every brand new day is a blessing after that.
I had a wicked crush on Lyndsay Wagner as a kid, even got a signed autograph from her !!
She STILL has a crush on you, Roro
Oh cut it out!! (Blushing)
@@ROROSMACHINE, ditto for me (except the signed autograph part). She was a *babe!*
Wow! Didn't know that
Time travellers BEWARE. If your going back to the 70's or 80's. TAKE THE BUS. your welcome
If they’re time travelers wouldn’t they know which planes crashed?
The bus was , in 1979 much more dangerous to travel on than a DC 10
@@gusm5128 Time travellers BEWARE. If your going back to the 70's or 80's. DON'T. your welcome
Time travelers BEWARE: If you're reading this in 2020 ... you picked a bad year. 🤦🏻♂️
AZNative43
True
Usually after a major crash, they retire the flight number. They didn't. In 1985 Delta flight 191 crashed at DFW killing most passengers. Microburst wind sheer. Please no more flight 191
That's up to the airline. AA has retired 191.
But delta and American did retire the flight number 191??
Rest in peace, all those poor people, we never know when our days are up on this Earth.
Oh you said nothing but the truth there!
@@michaelcurtis5844 They say when your number is Up it is Up.
That's why I had my landline disconnected.😉
Judith Wax, an author, was on flight 191 during the crash. Previously she wrote on page 191 of her book her fear of flying.
Eerie indeed!
Your videos are the best when you can add the raw audio files. Creates a very haunting experience. Needless great video as always. Look forward to the next.!
SHould check out the movie (made after a play) Charlie Victor Romeo--about the re-enactments of like 5 different CVR recordings, in ascending magnitude of disaster... It was riveting.
I remember this as a kid. It was the first major plane crash I ever knew of. I kept a newspaper with an eerie photo on the front page of the plane going down. I would look at it and think about what was going through the minds of those on board
*How this happened, for all that don't know, is:*
When the engine separated from the DC-10, it took some hydraulic fluid lines with it, that were supposed to lock the wing's leading-edge slats in place, damaging a 3-foot section of the left wing's leading edge near the place of the failed pylon, and the aerodynamic forces that were acting on the wing at the time when the aircraft was lifting off lead to an uncommanded retraction of the outboard slats. The aircraft began to climb, and, the damaged left wing - with no engine - produced far less lift than the right wing (that had its outboard slats still deployed and its engine providing TOGA thrust).
The retraction of those slats caused the stall speed on the wing to increase (from 124 knots to 159 knots), but the DC-10 was still climbing at the V2 speed (153 knots) at 14 degrees nose up following the flight directors, and therefore was 6 knots below the stall speed for that wing. Without any valid warnings that the aircraft was stalling (because the only stick shaker in the cockpit on the captains' side was cut, another fatal chain of events caused by cost cutting measures), the pilots unknowingly entered an asymmetrical aerodynamic stall.
In the final few seconds, full right aileron and rudder was inputted to try and level out the aircraft, and the right engine, at that moment, which was producing a power near, but not on TOGA thrust, were one of the reasons why the plane banked so far over, to a max value of 112 degrees on its left side, and the DC-10 crashed into a former airfield (or a trailer park, maybe even a hangar as some animations show it), just outside Chicago O'Hare's airport boundaries.
The 258 passengers and 13 crew members were killed in the accident, as a result of extreme force trauma, as well as 2 people on the ground, totaling 273 deaths.
Even if the pilots had known that the DC-10 was entering a stall, they couldn't have saved it anyway, because
1 ) The left engine was gone, and asymmetrical thrust would have made the landing very difficult, especially with the aircraft's weight, and judging by the aircraft's condition, they probably wouldn't have made it anyway
2 ) The hydraulics were leaking, which is the green mist you probably would have seen the aircraft emitting in the photo, and without it, you're basically fucked.
3 ) The left side instruments were killed when the engine separated, so from that moment on, it would have been all on the first officer to use HIS instruments to land the aircraft
Other pilots even ran a cockpit simulation of the flight to see if they could recover from it themselves, and every single person who had tried the emergency scenario had failed to land, or even recover.
*Peace to the Fallen, and you guys will never be forgotten in the quest to make aviation safer than it already is.*
*_5.25.1979_*
Well said. And RIP to the two men on the ground who died.
Those aircraft were and still are designed to fly with one engine however, FAA regulations at the time required three engines when over the oceans. I do agree though that with the one wing stalling, it was not recoverable...
@@devildogcrewchief3335 Maybe they would have been able to make a less fatal landing and some people would have been able to survive had the circumstances been different.
@@georgialee6755 Yeah, rest in peace to them. I edited the entire thing because I wasn't really thinking straight when I typed it, and you may see me giving a more detailed explanation of disasters in the comments section of other air disaster recreator channels.
@@gaztastic Of course, it's all speculation on our part, but I feel as though had the pilots trusted their instruments and warnings, then yes, they may have been able to have a more survivable landing/crash.
Just to clarify the crash.
There was NO maintenance hanger for jets at the crash site. The crash site was in an unincorporated area of Cook County, and outside the airport boundaries.
It was a repair garage for trucks / semi's.
400 W Touhy, ( a trailer park) was just yards away, and aircraft debris did hit homes there causing fire, and damage.
Nobody in the trailer park died.
Now most of the crash site is a storm water retention pond, as who would build here ?, but the front area, closet to Touhy ave. has new buildings there.
The worst part of remembrance ,is a group that put up their own money to memorialize this, and it IS located a mile plus from the crash site. THAT SUCKS !
How do I know this stuff?
I just moved into the trailer park, not even 2 weeks, and this happened.
Also happened on my birthday.
Have some real graphic memories of that day, as well as the succeeding months later.
Tim R I've looked up what was at the site before. Apparently it was an abandoned small airport known as Ravenswood. So the buildings that were on the site next to the trailer park you lived in where at one point hangers.
I saw flight 191 from the intersection of Elmhurst and touhy. The hangar was a leftover from the old Ravenswood airport. Airport closed soon after O'Hare opened.
Tim R: They were mobile homes, not trailers. In southern California most mobile home parks are nice places for retired older people and they get really pissed when people call their homes "trailers."
TRAILER PARK TRAILER PARK TRAILER PARK TRAILER PARK TRAILER PARK TRAILER PARK TRAILER PARK TRAILER PARK!
Thanks for telling us your story Tim R. That sounds pretty horrific.
My dad saw this happen....he was flying back to Indy and had a stop in Chicago....his flight and this flight passed right by each other so they were all waving to each other....when my dads plane was starting to let people off a lady on the left side of his plane screamed "oh my god the engine fell off" my dad thought she meant their plane....he went to her window to look and watch 191 go into the hard left and then saw the fire ball.....I remember he called home and said he was ok and by then it was just coming on the tv news stations....he was also in the air on 911
Greg Doane All planed were grounded in the USA during 9/11
@@OortCloud
Not until hours after the attack.
GD How could they see other waving through the small airplane windows?
@@georgialee6755 ....They were passing as they were taxing
Can you do more videos with the ATC recordings? They're a great part to these
Yeah ATC recordings give a whole new perspective to it
Rory no ATC communication because of electrical communication failure.
2021 191 Boeing 737 MAX from American Airlines hits towards a mountain in Guatemala.
Can you do more videos with the ATC recording in VIETNAM american??? They're a GREAT part to these
@Adam Hersonsky it is PIZDETSIBAL disconnect
I can remember my father saying "The DC-9 and the DC-10 we're great planes. They just had terrible luck." Having researched the nitty gritties of many of these fallen birds, I realize that he was right.
I was living in Chicago at the time, working as a PR staffer for the American Red Cross. When the crash happened, my boss sent me out to O'Hare to "cover" the crash for whatever Red Cross publicity we could create to raise money for the Red Cross. What they really needed at O'Hare was firefighters to put out the fire, medical people to collect the bodies and set up a morgue, and others to start cleaning up the wreckage. The Red Cross plastered red cross signs all over the fences (we couldn't get into the actual crash site) to make it look like, oh yeah, we were there, helping out. The Red Cross did what it always does: make coffee and try to look more important than the Salvation Army while telling the public to send donations to the Red Cross. Sad--and what a waste!
I don't how the "nearby Cessna" story started getting around, but the "Oh shit!" remark came from inside the tower. It's on the FAA's transcript of background chatter during the crisis, although it was transcribed as "Holy shit!" The controller's name was Edward Rucker; he was on position LC-4 (Local Control). Additionally, right after the plane crashed, he said, "Oh shit, I need to be relieved. I'm... oh, shit."
I don’t think the forklift actually ‘struck’ the pylon, causing the damage.
It was simply that using a forklift to lift both the engine & pylon together and removing them as a unit, instead of holding the engine alone with a cradle and unbolting it from the pylon (the manufacturer’s specified method), caused the wrong weight distribution during the hours-long repair. This then caused fatigue cracks in the wing/pylon mount, which eventually failed.
Dozens of DC-10s in various airlines that had been using the ‘forklift method’ were all found to have cracks in their wing mounts from doing this...
You are basically correct. However, the particular forklift used for this maintenance procedure had a leak in its hydraulic system. When the maintenance people went on lunch break the forklift leaked down causing the entire engine to be left hanging by the rear attachment. That's what cracked the rear pylon attachment.
DC 10s suck
@@brianglade848 You on a crusade or something? Kinda weird man.
@@ChadDidNothingWrong yeah....next stop, Fluffawarga
The v-shaped clevis was striking the flange during positioning of the pylon to the wing. Causing cracks that worsened until they finally failed on 5/25/79.
Residents at the trailer park near where this airliner crashed right after this accident happened said they were having their doors being knocked on and the door knobs turned. When they went to open the door, there was no one there.
I usually don't have this kind of reaction, but your comment gave me a shudder.
I have the newspaper from the next day. I worked just south and was leaving work that day. I remember all the emergency vehicles going outbound on the Kennedy expressway.
I don’t know what it was about this one but it shakes me to the core. I can’t imagine the terror they experienced before they crashed. It reminds me of flight 427 that crashed in hopewell twp Pennsylvania back in 94. I believe that one was flying out from Chicago as well. I knew a guy I worked with and he was a first responder there in hopewell and had a full biohazard suit on during the cleanup and he said it still bothered him to this day. He said there was body parts up in trees and scattered everywhere. It was horrible he said. I felt so bad for him cuz I could really see it in his eyes as he told me it and he really didn’t want to talk about it. I joined the army back in 93 and had my first flight on a plane to Ft benning, Ga for boot camp and AiT. I flew everywhere in the army and conducted night air assault ops in Blackhawk helicopters as well. I was never afraid of flying until 2008 when my wife and I were returning from Vegas and hit some of the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced in my life. The plane was dropping rapidly, the stewardesses were strapped in and looked scared even the business guys that fly all the time were worried. That was the last time I flew. I’m not saying I won’t again but it really shook me up
I love how a nearby Cessna pilot went "Holy shit!"
"Love"?!
Was it a pilot or ATC?
It was ATC and there was no "Holy" it was "Oh." But why do you "love" that??
From the NTSB Report: "Flight 191 crashed into the open field and the wreckage scattered into an adjacent trailer park. The aircraft was destroyed in the crash and subsequent fire. Two hundred and seventy-one persons on board Flight 191 were killed; two persons on the ground were killed, and two others were injured. *An old aircraft hangar*, several automobiles, and a mobile home were destroyed."
Anyone remember the band Brothers Johnson? They were booked on this flight and got to the airport a few minutes late and missed boarding. They were standing at the gate when the plane took off.
I read that too.
Actress Lindsay Wagner “the Bionic Woman” was a scheduled passenger but she had a bad feeling shortly before and didn’t get on
The Cessna pilot summed up the situation nicely.
I lived in Schaumburg just west of there. I was a 14yo playing on the corner, suddenly there was a boom that made me look to the east. Rising above the houses and still small trees in a new neighborhood was a huge, thick, black smoke cloud. I seem to remember the chemical smell as well that arrived as the smoke column lasted the entire day. A short time later when my parents came home from work we learned that it was a horrific crash at O'hare airport near Elk Grove Village, IL. I now live in Mt. Prospect, IL near the crash site. The video is inaccurate as to its crash site, which is in Des Plaines near Elk Grove Village. The plane crashed at 320 W Touhy Ave, Des Plaines, IL 60018 into the edge of a trailer park 4680 feet northwest from the end of runway 32R. The crash site is not developed to this day and remains an empty field except for a Police K-9 dog training facility on Touhy Ave. The crash site is the field behind the K-9 Training Building.
Mr. Churchill, God-Bless YOU Sir for what you have had to live with all these years!!!!! Thank you for taking the time to share that with us sir.
Thank you for your story. I was seven years old at the time, but I lived in Florida and don't remember this because I was a little kid. 🙂 But, I have since heard of this and other tragic stories like it and they all break my heart. 😔💔 I'm sure you will never forget this.
Rob Churchill , I lived in Mount Prospect at the time. It was about 3:00-3:15 on a clear Friday afternoon. I lived off Golf Road near Busse. I saw the black smoke out our living room window and said to my mother there was an oil fire and figured it was the tank farm that fueled the airport. I remember in was eerie driving past and looking out at that field and avoided the area as it bothered me too greatly. Was it Touhy? I thought it was Oakton.
I probably shouldn’t be watching these four days before I fly, but I can’t stop binge watching.
We have a nice clean poster who doesn't gibber gabber thru the whole time. We really get to the facts this way
I wonder how many passengers at the airport saw this as they sat waiting for their own flights, returned their tickets and went home. No way would I get on an aircraft after just seeing that.
TedBronson1918
Yeah, I would have been TOOOOOO shaken.
I would have flown again but it would have been a LONG time before I did and after some serious counseling.
Many people in the airport terminal witnessed this accident including many pilots and flight attendants
I remember this. I mean I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when this happened.Such a senseless tragic loss of lives.
I've driven this Touhy Ave many times, and I can imagine the look on the faces of the motorists when they were watching this plane go down. Sad story.
Not following suggested maintenance procedures is inexcusable.
"Yeah but we wanted to save some money and we know better than the engineers."
- airlines, probably.
Its the money: over and over. I think if a few execs were held criminally liable we could have saved so many lives.
The mechanic in charge commited suicide before he was going to testify.
alvan5 for certain, the AA execs who wanted the pylon cost cutting procedures in place did NOT fly on '10' aircraft themselves
ss, no, they collected $25 million for their 'profitable negligence'.......just like the triangle factory fire building owners cashed in on their greed ( locking fire exits) in a fire that killed over 100 women.....deliberate negligence, maybe
I remember this well........I was flying out of O'hare on this day my flight had just left a few minutes before flight 19....,In fact I just flew into O'hare and back out last week..
Someone wrote a comment about the unmitigated fear inherent in knowing you're about to die. With American 191 and other crashes that occur with little warning close to the ground, especially after take off, there's little time to process or order one's thoughts. In one sense that's probably a good thing, dying quickly, with no time to allow the terror of the situation to sink in.
But then, I can also imagine a different mindset. Accepting one's situation and being at peace with dying. This would be the mindset of the minority, I'm sure, especially when you consider that everything leading to the flight, even on that day, was about getting to one's destination, whether people were going home, or on holiday, doing business, visiting friends and family. Minutes earlier they were thinking about having a drink and relaxing and now this. But some will accept it, either through being at peace with death anyway, or their brains simply responding differently.
I heard somewhere that "191" is the deadliest flight number, having sustained three separate crashes.
4
@@StaunchSoldier en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_191
@@FirstClassFlyer 5
6
American alone has had 3 separate crashes with the flight number 01
My grandparents live right by O-hare, they said you could feel the explosion, and even smell the burning flesh of the people in the crash.
I Like How The Cessna Pilot Is Like Holy Shit
The Cessna Pilot was likely the first person to fully understand the fate of AA191.
lol
CanYouMicrosoft "Holy shit"
What's to like about that? Such an odd comment.
I met the grandson of the captain in Lake Geneva at Sprecher's back in 2015. My uncle worked for United at O'Hare. Thats how they talked about this.
What did the grandson say? I know he was born years later. One of the grandsons was given the first name Walter
something about planes with a 3rd engine embedded in the tail just freaks me the fuck out. maybe since I watch a ton of these videos and that's just such a noticeable feature but still...
Steve S I'm the same way, somethings just eerie about it
This crash had nothing to do with the tail engine though. And most other infamous dc10 crashes were because of a faulty cargo door design. That third engine on the tail actually made the plane more reliable and able to fly over oceans (because ETOPS laws wouldn't allow 2 engines to hop ponds at the time)
Funny, to me that middle engine seemed like an insurance policy in case one of the wing engines went bad. But then I was introduced to triples on the L-1011, still my favorite commercial jet of all time.
probably because the DC-10 is a piece of shit
That's strange, the Boeing 727 is one of my favorite aircraft, due to the 3 aft engines! (Reminds me of a rocket!) It's actually even safer, as the balance more central and tri-jets are a second-generation aircraft with handling much easier if you should lose an engine, and the newer high-bypass turbofans are quieter and more powerful. Other tri-jets include the Hawker Siddeley Trident, Tupolev Tu-154, Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, and, more recently, the Dassault Falcon 7X, but IF IT'S NOT BOEING, I'M NOT GOING is a long-time mantra of mine so it's not easy for me to switch, but I do like Lockheed's 1011! (There is just one thing though, I wish engineers could design aircraft so that the hydraulics are NOT in the very back of the plane!) I know the tail should be the safest in theory, but when something happens and hydraulics are lost, the aircraft stands little chance of landing safely, even with exceptional airmanship of the pilots.
The prosecutor for the States Attorney investigating John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was having dinner at a cafeteria near O'Hare when this crash happened. He sped to the site and participated in identifying the bodies. That was a helluva winter for him.
Interesting.
I know, also on this day a prisoner was executed in Florida.
This terrible accident happened on the same exact day my favorite movie (Alien) came out.
I see you’re a man of culture.
Now that is a good trivia question
Also the same day of the execution of John Spenklink in the electric chair in Florida
I was a freshman in high school when this happened; it was just so sad; I remember it on the news growing up on Oahu.
Brian 🖕🏼
I remember having a flight scheduled on United from Seattle to DC right after the crash on a United DC10. I switched to TWA (which I still distinctly remember) proclaimed they "do not fly DC10s".
TWA had Lockheed L-10-11's, which were essentially the same thing, but different. Yeah, TWA, Delta, Eastern.....they weren't hurtin' for certain when the FAA grounded the DC-10.....
@@chooch1995 Very different and very well designed aircraft. Similar engine layout, but the center engine in the rear of the fuselage rather than high in the tail. Lockheed also built the aircraft like it was for the military, well laid out and easy to maintain. Shame it had a short life, it was an amazing plane.
Thank you so much for all your wonderful aviation videos.
"All used a faster and cheaper way to conduct the repair" There are three ways to do things: Fast, Cheap, and Right but you can only pick two, excluding the remainder.
This channel is so much better than "Flight Channel". No ridiculous sappy music drenched over top of the horrific crashes. Just a simple, no frills account of what happened.
I have a friend who missed that flight by five minutes.
The lowest of low bosses I ever worked asked me to travel from Philadelphia to Detroit to look at a property for a business deal. This was in early June of 1979. I found out the plane I was the fly was a DC-10 that had yet to be grounded due to the Chicago crash. A real slimeball was Harry Shapiro, President of Strick Trailer who basically ordered me to make the trip. Fortunately, the DC-10's were grounded before my flight and I got to fly on another aircraft.
42 years later I will bet he's still a shitbag, retired and now President of some Homeowner's Association in Florida.
I knew people like that. You read their obituary and tears roll down your face.......from laughing so hard. I got stranded in Venezuela when all DC-10 traffic was grounded. 8 days of waiting in lines at Maracaibo Airport to get to Anywhere, USA. I finally was the last to board a resurrected beat up Boeing 707 to get to Miami.
I was booked on AA191 the day it crashed....Albany to Chicago to LAX... but changed my plans shortly before the cab picked me up. I went to our office in Schenectady instead. My parents were expecting me home to LA and thought I had been killed. They were beyond freaked when I called to say I wasn't coming home. I was unaware of the crash until they told me to turn on the TV. The crash has been intertwined in my life in some weird ways since 2001 when I met a lady whose roommate was a Flight Attendant who died on 191. She thinks the girl's spirit put us together. Many times, I thought she was right. I flew all over the world for GE back then and the DC-10 was one of my favorite planes.
I heard a overheard conversation about this a long time ago, something about a mechanic nicknamed “forklift Larry”. He was the mechanic using an unapproved technique to change engines.
I literally live about a mile or two from the crash site which makes this so crazy, awesome video btw
I knew a girl who, in 1979, lived on Sprucewood Avenue in Des Plaines. She said she thought the windows in her house were going to shatter.
You might as well do all the 191s now (or at least the other main two) DA191 and Comair 191. There's also X15 Flight 191 (1967), Prinair Flight 191 (1972) and I remember almost spitting out my food when I saw Jet Blue 191 make the headlines in 2012. Man last year in China I was on a flight 1191, almost kissed the ground when that one landed successfully.
9/11...I see what you tho all honestly. 1 and 9's are bad omen with aviation it seems.
@@veritassyfer1185 I'm not all that superstitious about numbers but the 191 thing is a definite thing.
191 is a number that you should never trust, it can flip to 911 like 9/11. 119 which could give 911 back words (the phone #) t
@@friendlysky7674 I suppose one three digit number had to be infamous. I'm sure there were thousands of 191 flights that went off without a problem and even more 9/11 calendar dates that held little significance from any other day. That said I'd rather avoid that flight number.
A couple of the DC-10 crashes were due to Cargo door coming off causing explosive decompression. This crash was due to stress of the pylon assembly of the #1 (wing) engine. This was caused by an incorrect maintenance procedure. According to manufacturer instructions, when removing the engine for servicing , slings were supposed to be used to support it. AA and other carriers were using forklifts. They figured out after this accident that doing it this way was stressing out the Pylon assembly. The DC-10 was subsequently grounded worldwide as the found stress fractures on DC-10s throughout the industry. This had to be corrected before they could fly again.
Actually it was a little more involved than that. The correct procedure was to remove the engine from the pylon first and then remove the pylon from the wing. What they were doing to save time was to remove the engine and pylon mated together as a unit. Further, forklifts are not designed to do this type of work. The forklift used to do this particular maintenance task had a slight leak in its hydraulics. When the maintenance people went to lunch it leaked down, which left the engine and pylon hanging only by the rear attachment point. The stress of that was what cracked the attachment faring.causing the engine to eventually come loose and go up over the wing.
@@joevignolor4u949 Right, but they had to ground all DC-10s in the aftermath of this accident when they found stress cracks in other DC-10s if I remember correctly.
@@rvalderas1 - True. Who knows how all the other engine/pylon assemblies were lifted. However, it seems that knowledge of the alternative unauthorized procedure may have traveled through the grapevine to different airlines and it included using forklifts, which were not intended for this type of procedure.
When that engine flew off, all of the passengers knew they were screwed, rip🥺🥺
Beautiful graphics of the mishap, all very clear. Good job!
It was more than just the time saving (translation: money saving) maintenance issue. It was wilfully ignoring the manufacturer who sent the airlines memos: don’t do an engine swap like that. The cheaper procedure was to take the engine off with the pylon still attached, rather than the way McDonnell Douglas recommended-engine and pylon separate. Also, during that particular engine change, the forklift shifted, and a loud bang was heard as internal structure was damaged. A shift change occurred mid-engine swap, and there was no communication between the shifts regarding the damage or the forklift shifting.
As for the actual failure, the engine did just what it was designed to do in the event of a failure like that-it flipped up and over the top of the wing. Unfortunately, all of the hydraulic lines that fed the flaps on the left wing were routed through the leading edge, and they were all severed. The #1 engine also powered the instruments that could have told the crew the status of the flaps and their uncontrolled retraction. You can see it in the iconic photo of AA191 as it is rolling left...the flaps are retracted and hydraulic fluid is streaming from the wing. As unbelievable as it sounds, if the hydraulic lines hadn’t severed, or if the procedure (AA changed the procedure post accident, I believe) had been better, or even if the crew was able to understand exactly what was happening to their aircraft (the wing mounted engines weren’t visible from the cockpit, IIRC, so the crew never knew they lost the entire engine mount), it was possible to survive that incident.
Joey You said it all correctly. Howe er the investigators also found cracks in other AA planes and two in Continental who also ignored the instructions. United ignored it as well but they used an overhead crane instead of a forklift
Call it a false sense of security, but this is the main reason why I feel safe flying in an Air Force aircraft any day. NO aircraft leaves the ground for the sake of being cheap. Not only that, but aircraft maintenance and inspections are a 24 job.
The real shame is that other pilot's later demonstrated under simulation that the situation may have been recoverable had the crew not followed procedure and slowed the aircraft down to the recommended engine out speed resulting in a stall, roll and pitch down. I think the crew may have figured that out if they had more time. At 500 AGL time was not on their side. I can't even imagine what that passenger cabin sounded like when the passengers realized they were really going down. May the Lord have mercy on their souls.
The later simulations showed the plane as survivable only if the crew knew the engine had been torn off and resulting damage to systems. Since the crew had no way to know it was judged unsurvivable.
I guess the lord already knew what he was going to do with their souls...probably you shouldn't tell the lord what to do, since he knows everything.
Not a really a shame considering what the people reenacting it already know.
Absolutely everything is avoidable in hindsight.
So you're telling me that they could have still flown without hydraulics on the left wing? I don't believe that they could, but if they could then please inform me.
@@adoriousgravy8033 they theoretically could have if they knew what happened. They did some flight sim reenactments and even with them knowing they only had like 5% chance saving it (1 out of 20 tries didnt result in complete loss of life).
This was years ago where I read this so those numbers might be wrong, I'll have to find it again.
I and a friend were westbound on the Kennedy Expressway right there as the smoke started to rise. It must have been within a minute of the crash. At the time we thought it was an explosion in the fuel tank farm, you can see these from the road and in this simulation out the cockpit as the plane is going down. Big thick black cloud rising. It could have easily come down in the middle of a dozen huge fuel tanks.
It was also common practice at the time to show live feed of the take off from a "plane's eye view" to the passengers. They watched it happen in front of them, which is just horrifying to me. Since this crash, the practice ceased.
Well actually with the DC 10 they would show the plane crashing on take off, like in the movie airplane ! This in order to desensitize people to the DC-10..
What technology did they use for that? Didn't these planes have old projectors for entertainment?
This is not so. All throughout the 80's I rode on airlines that showed takeoffs and landings on a big screen. I doubt anyone was watching anything on this flight while being subjected to tremendous G forces.
The engine that generated electricity for the tv was the one that fell, the entire electrical part of the passenger cabin go off
It's a thing again due to cameras on planes. On a recent flight I was able to watch my entire flight takeoff to landing from the tail cam.
i watched all of your videos multiple times cant wait for new ones plzzz
deliver man !!
The DC-10 Was the most deadly aircraft in 1980-1995 Now its the safest plane, unfortunately it was taken out of service and now used for cargo planes, Rip DC-10
Sam tyler the original widowmaker
yeah now is safe. Thank god it is grounded.
I doubt it's the safest plane currently. Definitely safer now but I reckon the 787, A350, A380, 747-8i, etc. Are safer
It has comparable safety to all other planes.
Not even close the DC 10 and it's variants have the third worst safety record in the industry after the the F28 and the 707. The L1011 on the other hand is comparable to the latest modern jet liners...
I'm not calling anyone here a liar, but how is literally everyone in the comment section related to this flight?
I'm also aware this crash happened 43 years ago today.
May 25, 2022
May 25, 1979.
I lived in suburban Chicago and remember this well. The plane DID NOT crash into a hangar on the airport edge. It crashed on the other side of Northwest Tollway(I-90) in a small field very close to a fuel tank farm that supplied O'Hare airport and destroyed a few mobile homes in a trailer park. It crashed off Oakton Blvd and there was nothing left but tin foil so to speak. Shame and a real horror!
Tom Johnson is correct. www.dailyherald.com/article/20111014/news/710149919/
ruclips.net/video/3buaNpr23a0/видео.html (@10:45)
Delta Flight 191 - 1985 (Lockheed L1011) lessonslearned.faa.gov/ll_main.cfm?TabID=1&LLID=32&LLTypeID=2
i read thatit crashed onto the tollway for real too
oh my..another plane crashed theretoo? two crashes in one day? omg!
what exactly you felt or saw or heard when that crash took place? It must hhave been sad ndeed
Make sure you guys check out the comment by Tim R. It sounds like he was in the trailer park at the time.
Thanks for the video X Pilot!
I lived in Norridge at the time, i was watching tv i heard when it went down. Poor people rip.❤
All these videos make me too scared to fly
Carinyc Same. Can't wait for my flight in 4 hours!!!!
You won't actually die. Airplanes are very safe.
@@chrispetersonbacon2693 not when there's a glitch
@@hydrophilichunk1346 did you make it?
Here's a comparison: if there was a channel that uploaded a video for every fatal car crash, they'd be posting hundreds of new videos each week.
Correct me if I’m wrong.. but the procedure was to bring the thrust to idle and enter a steep climb? In other words, the procedure for losing an engine is to stall?
Why can’t people just do things by the book?
My guess is both deadlines and costs. We talk about saving money by cutting corners, but I've also read about maintenance related crashes where the plane had to be ready to fly in mere hours, thereby forcing the technicians to do rush jobs. Its a terrible shame.
Because that isn't the capitalist way
Because $$$.
Why can't human beings care more about human life than profit? It's a human flaw that has been allowed to metastasize with no end in sight!
Speaking as someone who is scared shitless of flying, and around Christmas is tipped to take only my second flight since the ‘80’s, I really enjoy your channel.
Are you alive
xpilot Well recorded, i like your vids keep up the good work
Dc-10 moment [Rest in peace to everyone who died]
*engine flies off* Pilot: hey can i get that back i kinda need that
smash5760 takes a lot for me to actually LOL. Thank you for that
smash5760 corny af
CaLx Hater.
smash5760 Yeah, not funny.
Great video and animation. And thank you so much for not playing crappy music over the video.
My grandpa Jack Moncrieff was killed in this before I could even meet him:((
Yea. Your dad was only like 7 or 8 at the time. So sad
@@NOV123 I think he was 8
These videos are really well done. Thanks for sharing!
One guy on this plane that died only didn’t fear death for sure and his name was Itzhak Bentov. You can find his amazing video on YT where he explains how the reality works and that we still live in the spiritual worlds after death without a physical body. He Astral Traveled with his soul while alive and explored higher worlds, you can read his book Stalking the Wild Pendulum.
I was a junior in high school at Fenton in Bensenville. I was in the band room it’s friends and saw it go down.
Author Judith Wax was on board this doomed flight. She wrote about her extreme fear of flying over the years.
RIP
To the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 191 and to the two people on the ground
I’m just as disappointed that the pilots decided to PULL UP with REDUCED THRUST. If you have reduced thrust I would’ve thought that pulling up would have been the last thing to do.
Sure this plane would’ve crashed pretty hard too if they didn’t pull up at all, but I would’ve thought that crashing more horizontally wouldn’t have destroyed the plane as much
Granted, they didn’t know that an entire engine just blew off as there wasn’t any warnings or any alarms to signify that, the pilots only knew that they had lost power to an engine, they most likely thought that the engine was still intact but had stopped working. It’s because of that that they followed standard procedures and attempt circle around the airport and land (which had it simply been a failure of an engine, would’ve been the better choice than aborting the take-off after already lifting with little runway left).
The people that make these aren't pilots and they sometimes put misinformation into the video. The pilots did not reduce thrust. The engine out procedure that they followed at that time said that if an engine fails the pilots should reduce speed to V2 which was 153 knots with the flaps and slats extended. The speed of the DC-10 was 172 knots so the crew slowed to 153 knots at a rate of 1 knot per second. Unfortunately with part of the left slat retracted the crew didn't know that the stall speed was now 159 knots. When they slowed below that speed they stalled and ddin't have enough altitude to recover. There was no stick shaker on the first officer's control column and the electrical wiring to the captain's stick shaker and slats disagree light ran off the number 1 engine and was ruptured as well as the hydraulic line. Good pilots, lousy situation.
THANK YOU X PILOT
Dezert-Owl / Free America Radio
Great work! Keep it up! I love your videos!
Incredibly sad .. when your time is up 😢
And this is the major reason why I choose not to fly. If I can't drive or go by boat, Michael Curtis doesn't go. My grandmother used to say that if God wanted us to go to the moon, he'd built a road and if God wanted us to fly, he would have provided us with wings.
I wonder IF American Airlines was made responsible for the deviation from maintenance protocol and had to reimburse the people who died. It WAS American Airlines FAULT that it happened because the corporation wanted to save some money!
Damn this is sad but good video dude
When watching the news I still remember the radio calls like yesterday - calling Flight 191
cessna pilot on hi mind: well i know what i won't be flying.
i swear half of these are on DC-10s !!! The tri-jet configuration is so cool though
I lived in Chicago at the time of the 191 crash and had just gotten my drivers licence ..... a friend and I decided to take a ride in that direction the next day ........from the road, we saw hundreds of small wooden stakes with colored flags in a large field near the crash site.......I am guessing they marked pieces of the wreckage and bodies....
I just love the details in your vids. Thank you.
Big fan of your videos, but the captions are a bit difficult to read on smaller devices. A thicker weight and border would help!
@Brian Dude that shit is unnecessary.