Ghosts of 191: The Crash Site that Continues to Haunt Chicago to this Day – AeroXplorer.com
The Flight That Began Like Any Other
American Airlines Flight 191 was a scheduled passenger service operating from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport on May 25, 1979. The aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, a wide-body jet powered by three engines: two mounted beneath the wings and a third positioned at the rear of the fuselage near the base of the tail.
The DC-10 had been designed to carry large numbers of passengers over
long distances. Its wide cabin, three-engine configuration, and long-range capabilities made it a significant aircraft in the development of commercial air travel during the 1970s.
On that late-May afternoon, passengers boarded Flight 191 expecting to travel across the United States. The crew prepared the aircraft for departure, and the normal checks and procedures associated with a scheduled flight took place. Nothing about the passengers’ routine preparations could have revealed the chain of events that was about to unfold.
The departure runway was long enough for the aircraft to accelerate and reach the speed required for takeoff. As the engines produced thrust, the DC-10 moved down the runway, gathering the energy needed to become airborne.
For pilots, the takeoff phase is one of the most demanding parts of a flight. The aircraft must accelerate, respond to control inputs, and transition from ground movement to flight within a carefully managed sequence. Pilots
monitor engine performance, airspeed, and the aircraft’s response, while following established procedures for the departure.
A serious malfunction during this phase presents a particularly difficult challenge. The aircraft may be moving too quickly for an ordinary stop to be simple, yet it may not have enough altitude for the crew to diagnose an unfamiliar problem and recover from it.
That was the situation Flight 191 encountered.
As the aircraft accelerated and lifted from the runway, the left engine assembly separated from the wing. The failure was not merely the loss of an engine’s thrust. The departing assembly damaged other components, including systems needed to maintain the aircraft’s expected behavior after takeoff.
