A really good article.

https://graphics.chicagotribune.com/fli ... niversary/

I was 15 at the time, lived near ORD on the Chicago side and still remember that day seeing the smoke rising.

Really good, if not heart wrenching article

I remember it well. I had flown into ORD earlier that day for a business meeting. I was in an east facing room at a hotel on the Kennedy, when I saw a bunch of firetrucks headed west. I thought a plane must have crashed. Walked to a west facing window and saw that awful plume of black smoke...

Even though I was only 6 when this accident happened, I remember it clearly, probably more so living in Chicago. I remember the accident making me afraid my parents would never return when leaving town. Also made me nervous to fly a DC-10 until AA and UA finally retired them.

The things we will never know, what would have happened if the pilots did not do as trained, reduced thrust and instead went TOGA on the thrust on the two remaining engines. The aircraft still could have flown, though landing with out slats and flaps would be problematic.

The ineptitude in the DC-10 system's design is staggering along with the cost cutting. Talk about management team that was criminally liable.

I too remember that day, and the grounding. Caused much more disruption than the 737 MAX grounding ( remember watching the TV show "Hart to Hart" and the reason the characters had to take the train from LA-CHI was because of the DC-10 grounding). However, the DC-10 flew again, and for a number of years before retired from the airline fleets.

Wow, I thought I was good at tracking down aviation accident pictures but I'd never seen the one of AA191 taxiing out to its last flight. Haunting photo.

Some things to remember about the DC-10:

1) We learned that a "gentleman's agreement" on fixing deadly flaws doesn't work. AA #92 showed us that the DC-10's cargo door was not secure in the old way; planes SHOULD have been grounded until fixed. But because it wasn't given urgency, 346 people paid the price.

2) McDonnell Douglas strongly advised against removing the engine with pylons when servicing; however, airlines were under no obligation to follow that advice. Result? The latch pin on these planes (AA, CO, and UA) all showed signs of stress and weakness, which could have led to the same horrific outcome as AA #191. Today, if a manufacturer says, "DON'T DO THAT!", airlines 'don't do that'.

3) Safety equipment should NEVER be considered "optional". Had the optional stick shaker powered by a different engine than the lost one been installed on N110AA, the flight crew would have been aware they were in a stall situation, and could have reacted appropriately. Instead, this "option" was not installed, and the pilots, using their training, set their airspeed for 159 knots, the proper climb-out speed for an engine-out scenario. Unfortunately, with the slat-disagreement system also not operating, this was below the stall speed, leading to the crash.

AA 191 was, thankfully, the last DC-10 crash which could be pinned on "the design" of the aircraft. All subsequent accidents were not related to its design; however United 232 is kind of a gray area on this matter. American went on to fly these birds for a VERY long time, and some of the oldest models are still flying cargo. The world learned a lot about flying from these planes, and their accomplishments tend to get overlooked when discussing the horrible accidents.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

AA 191 was, thankfully, the last DC-10 crash which could be pinned on "the design" of the aircraft. All subsequent accidents were not related to its design; however United 232 is kind of a gray area on this matter.

I don't consider UA232 in a gray area. Even if the starting point of the accident was the engine's fan flaw, the uncontained engine failure it generated put the spotlight on two more design flaws with the hydraulic system.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

1) We learned that a "gentleman's agreement" on fixing deadly flaws doesn't work. AA #92 showed us that the DC-10's cargo door was not secure in the old way; planes SHOULD have been grounded until fixed. But because it wasn't given urgency, 346 people paid the price.

American 96, not 92.

SpaceshipDC10 wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

AA 191 was, thankfully, the last DC-10 crash which could be pinned on "the design" of the aircraft. All subsequent accidents were not related to its design; however United 232 is kind of a gray area on this matter.

I don't consider UA232 in a gray area. Even if the starting point of the accident was the engine's fan flaw, the uncontained engine failure it generated put the spotlight on two more design flaws with the hydraulic system.

I can relate to your point; however, it wasn't that the engine fragments hit the one-and-only hydraulic system, it hit three. Because of the randomness of hitting three separate lines - however close together they may be - it is much more a random event on the spectrum. What if only two lines had been severed?

AirKevin wrote:

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

1) We learned that a "gentleman's agreement" on fixing deadly flaws doesn't work. AA #92 showed us that the DC-10's cargo door was not secure in the old way; planes SHOULD have been grounded until fixed. But because it wasn't given urgency, 346 people paid the price.

American 96, not 92.

I looked right at the 6 in 96 and still typed a 2. Now to figure out which one is my lucky number for the day...

I wonder if the pilots had known they had physically lost the engine from the wing, would the have just kept it on the ground? I know they were at takeoff speed but they didn’t have a chance in hell with the engine falling off.

I recently worked with a former American mechanic who worked with some of the people that replaced that engine in Tulsa. He told me that in the end McDonnell Douglas ended up taking most of the lawsuits. But then ironically American ordered all those Super 80s shortly afterward.

Those were the days when you could count on there being a major airline crash every 18 months or so. It's amazing how much airline safety has improved since then.

One of the things that made this crash so well known were those incredible pictures of the last moments of flight that somehow got taken. As others have noted, it showed how dangerous shortcuts in maintenance were too common as well as serious design flaws, not the first or last for the DC-10.

One of the other reasons this crash resonates is that at that time in the late 70’s and early 80’s, AA DC-10’s on takeoff and landing showed the actual cockpit video on the big monitors in the passenger cabin.

The vantage point was just behind the pilots.
So thus, these poor passengers watched themselves go down to their deaths and the pilots fighting to the end.

As a kid, I flew a AA DC-10 in 1981 and the cockpit video was still being shown....

I recently read a different article about this crash, and try as I might I just can't remember where. The reason it stuck in my mind was that it included a couple of pictures of the DC 10 in the air, that I had never seen before. They were apparently taken by a man from the window of an arriving aircraft. I die a little inside every time I see that picture of the DC 10 on its side. The fear and terror in the cabin at that moment is unimaginable.

I've always found this picture both incredibly haunting and fortunate:



If the aircraft had crashed even another football field or two to the left, it would've been right in the center of a large mobile home community, and dozens (if not hundreds) more could've been killed.

Chilling to think about.

QueenoftheSkies wrote:

I wonder if the pilots had known they had physically lost the engine from the wing, would the have just kept it on the ground? I know they were at takeoff speed but they didn’t have a chance in hell with the engine falling off.

It wasn't the engine falling off that doomed them it was the fact that when the engine tore off it took the hydraulic lines with it causing the slats on that side to retract and even then if the crew had known they were stalling they could have traded altitude for airspeed though they didn't have much altitude to play with. It is usually never any one thing that causes a crash but a myriad chain of bad events.

texdravid wrote:

One of the other reasons this crash resonates is that at that time in the late 70’s and early 80’s, AA DC-10’s on takeoff and landing showed the actual cockpit video on the big monitors in the passenger cabin.

The vantage point was just behind the pilots.
So thus, these poor passengers watched themselves go down to their deaths and the pilots fighting to the end.

As a kid, I flew a AA DC-10 in 1981 and the cockpit video was still being shown....

My first trip around the US I remember flying from LA down to Dallas first time in a DC 10 and me and my Auntie was amazed about seeing the cockpit on the monitors they did not do that down here in Australia. It does send chills up your spine when you see that crash, I now the 10s got a bad name for a while but interesting to know how 10s compared to 747s that has been lost in crashes caused by mechanical issues?

1979 was a very bad year for DC-10s. Three examples were lost in a 6 months period - American 191, Western 2605, and Air New Zealand 901.

If social media existed back then, MDC would have been dead.

b4thefall wrote:

I recently read a different article about this crash, and try as I might I just can't remember where. The reason it stuck in my mind was that it included a couple of pictures of the DC 10 in the air, that I had never seen before. They were apparently taken by a man from the window of an arriving aircraft. I die a little inside every time I see that picture of the DC 10 on its side. The fear and terror in the cabin at that moment is unimaginable.

I believe this is the article you are referring to:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magaz ... light-191/

ord wrote:

I believe this is the article you are referring to:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magaz ... light-191/

Those photos are even more chilling than the other ones, especially the one showing the moment the plane contacts the ground

I have never seen the above pictures or the picture of them taxing out. If only I had a time machine to warn them. As a tower controller I noticed the local controller was trying to hit a gap with AAL191 Heavy. I’m wondering what the pilot in final saw and if there is a report out there?

Wow I’ve never seen those additional pictures. Chilling. I can only hope that confusion was the dominant emotion over fear for most passengers.

ord wrote:

b4thefall wrote:

I recently read a different article about this crash, and try as I might I just can't remember where. The reason it stuck in my mind was that it included a couple of pictures of the DC 10 in the air, that I had never seen before. They were apparently taken by a man from the window of an arriving aircraft. I die a little inside every time I see that picture of the DC 10 on its side. The fear and terror in the cabin at that moment is unimaginable.

I believe this is the article you are referring to:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magaz ... light-191/

Thank you very much. That is the exact article I was referring to. Chilling pictures indeed.

United787 wrote:

ord wrote:

I believe this is the article you are referring to:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magaz ... light-191/

Those photos are even more chilling than the other ones, especially the one showing the moment the plane contacts the ground

This crash and PSA 182 less than a year earlier were the first accidents to be photographed and witnessed by the public on a massive scale. There had always been the after photos, but never really a before image. It was really after this that an airline's flight number became associated with a crash, almost, wierdly, the way that hurricane names are retired if it has been a notable event.

Amongst other design weaknesses the DC10 lacked a system to lock out the slats with a loss of hydraulic pressure

Unlike the 747 and L1011, if such a system had been installed the slats would have stayed out on both wings, control would have been retained and they could have returned for a safe landing

United787 wrote:

[hose photos are even more chilling than the other ones, especially the one showing the moment the plane contacts the ground

https://www.chicagomag.com/images/2019/ ... quence.jpg

These pictures show how quickly the plane rolled when the left wing stalled. That is what chills me. I never knew it was so fast. Looking at the buildings, they didn't travel far from level flight to 112 degree bank, it 's a split second. The pilots wouldn't even have had time to react. It's like the behaviour of a paper arrow.

United787 wrote:

Those photos are even more chilling than the other ones, especially the one showing the moment the plane contacts the ground

First time I see these pictures. With these we can clearly see how fast the change of attitude from level to stall must have happened. It's really staggering.

Wikipedia quotes the NTSB report about the stall speed: "Wind tunnel and flight simulator tests were conducted to help to understand the trajectory of the aircraft after the engine detached and the left wing slats retracted. Those tests established that the damage to the wing's leading edge and retraction of the slats increased the stall speed of the left wing from 124 knots (143 mph) to 159 knots (183 mph)."

jcwr56 wrote:

A really good article.

https://graphics.chicagotribune.com/fli ... niversary/

I was 15 at the time, lived near ORD on the Chicago side and still remember that day seeing the smoke rising.

In the article, there is a link to a page about the victims of AA191 (many with a short bio and photos, as told by relatives 40 years on.) Some are incredibly haunting and sad memories; it is easy to get lost in the broken bolt or bracket here, lack of stick shaker there, aspect of the crash so assembling a comprehensive article about the victims puts the human element into focus. There were kids going about their innocent lives in California who came home from school and walked into a different reality as word of the crash spread, or perhaps mom got one of the most difficult phone calls you can get, confirming the worst. So many lost a parent (or both parents), and other relatives who lost a brother, aunt or uncle, or in some cases there were whole families wiped out. It was a cross-section of people just like you would find on any transcontinental flight, especially over a holiday weekend.
I was particularly drawn to the perspective of the young boy who lost his grandparents on AA191. He would be in his mid-40s now, obviously, and he was robbed of an opportunity to get to know them for more than the three years that he did. He had such poignant memories of them, no doubt clouded by his age at the time and the years that have rolled by since. I am usually good at keeping emotions at bay but this article stuck me hard.

My family were visiting my maternal grandparents in Indiana around the time this accident occurred. We made a connection at ORD going back to Los Angeles. I was just a child at the time, but my mother always told my sister and I how my father's uncle went berserk calling everyone he could because he thought we may have been on that flight.

The 'new' pictures of the doomed jet's final seconds are riveting. I've been following aviation for decades and am surprised I have never seen these before. Such a tragic accident. Understandable it still resonates after all these years. RIP AA 191

It sounds like they are considering having the western enterance to ORD traverse the 191 crash site.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/metro-stat ... -191-crash

Hopefully, if they do this, they find a way to be respectful of the history. The 191 crash site has been undeveloped since 1979. I had heard growing up that American Airlines owned the land. Sounds like the City of Chicago owns it and uses part of the frontage to the road for police dog training.

United787 wrote:

ord wrote:

I believe this is the article you are referring to:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magaz ... light-191/

Those photos are even more chilling than the other ones, especially the one showing the moment the plane contacts the ground

Jesus Christ, that one with the aircraft nose down / rolled over, and near the ground/moments away from impact … is positively chilling to look at.

william wrote:

The ineptitude in the DC-10 system's design is staggering along with the cost cutting. Talk about management team that was criminally liable.

.

The crash was caused by improper maintenance, pure and simple.

Those photos add a new perspective. The original pictures make it seem like the D10 was rolled over 90 degrees but in level flight. What was actually happening was the plane rolled from zero degrees on its way to 180 before it hit the ground. The old pictures just caught it at 90 degrees.

The article above mentions a united airlines strike. 52 day IAM strike

midway7 wrote:

It sounds like they are considering having the western enterance to ORD traverse the 191 crash site.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/metro-stat ... -191-crash

Hopefully, if they do this, they find a way to be respectful of the history. The 191 crash site has been undeveloped since 1979. I had heard growing up that American Airlines owned the land. Sounds like the City of Chicago owns it and uses part of the frontage to the road for police dog training.

It was owned by the City of Chicago which then sold it to the Tollway Commission. Looking at the highway interchange plans, it's a sure bet that this land will be paved over.

It appears that the Captain flew the accident aircraft in from PHX. He was then going to be off duty but was assigned to 191.

MeanGreen wrote:

It appears that the Captain flew the accident aircraft in from PHX. He was then going to be off duty but was assigned to 191.

Actually, if memory serves me correctly, he swapped trips with another pilot he knew when they ran into each other at ORD as a favor.

Here we are, May 25th, that sad day in aviation's history.

At
- 3:04pm Chicago time
- 10:04am at Honolulu
- 01:04pm at Vancouver
- 16:04 at Santiago (Chile)
- 21:04 at Lagos
- 22:04 at Berlin
- 23:04 at Beirut
then May 26th
- 00:34 at Tehran
- 01:34 at Mumbai
- 03:04 at Bangkok
- 04:04 at Singapore
- 05:04 at Tokyo
- 06:04 at Melbourne
- 08:04 at Auckland

it will be 40 years since AA191 crashed shortly after take off from ORD.

gunsontheroof wrote:

MeanGreen wrote:

It appears that the Captain flew the accident aircraft in from PHX. He was then going to be off duty but was assigned to 191.

Actually, if memory serves me correctly, he swapped trips with another pilot he knew when they ran into each other at ORD as a favor.

Interesting, I figured someone had called in. I didn’t know it happened the way you described.

QueenoftheSkies wrote:

I wonder if the pilots had known they had physically lost the engine from the wing, would the have just kept it on the ground? I know they were at takeoff speed but they didn’t have a chance in hell with the engine falling off.

Pretty difficult to know for sure. But!!! I would guess they knew they had an engine failure at minimum. I would also assume the Flight Engineers engine panel showed that engine went to zero suddenly, and likely saw hydraulic gauges drop suddenly.

I am willing to bet the passengers seated on the left side of the plane witnessed in horror as that engine flew over the top of that wing. I have always wondered if that engine had come off at say 10,000 feet, could the plane have been saved? That had to have been the worst possible moment for that engine and bolts to finally give way.

I too have never seen those photos taken by the passenger in another plane! Wow. And I have spent alot of time looking up info on this crash for many years too!

F9Animal wrote:

Pretty difficult to know for sure. But!!! I would guess they knew they had an engine failure at minimum.

Yes they knew.

"The last stable tat?eoff thrust on the No. 1 'engine was recorded 2 sec before liftoff. One second later, the word "damn" was recoraed on the CVR, and then the CVR ceased operating."

(…)

"The flight lifted off in a slight left wing-down attitude. Application of attitude and the headlng was stabilized between 325' and 327'. The flight main- tained a steady climb about 1,150 feet per minute (fpm) at a 14' noseup .p~tch attitude--the target pitch'attitude displayed by the Ilight director for a two- engine climb. During the climb, the No. 2 engine N speed increased graduallJ from 101 percent to a final value of 107 percent; "

Source: NTSB report http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-fu ... R79-17.pdf

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

Some things to remember about the DC-10:

1) We learned that a "gentleman's agreement" on fixing deadly flaws doesn't work. AA #92 showed us that the DC-10's cargo door was not secure in the old way; planes SHOULD have been grounded until fixed. But because it wasn't given urgency, 346 people paid the price..

I KNOW that you are talking about Paris,1974...but in case there are some youngsters on here, please elaborate.

Also, why did one crash and the other, not? Cargo door blew out on both, correct?

texdravid wrote:

One of the other reasons this crash resonates is that at that time in the late 70’s and early 80’s, AA DC-10’s on takeoff and landing showed the actual cockpit video on the big monitors in the passenger cabin.

The vantage point was just behind the pilots.
So thus, these poor passengers watched themselves go down to their deaths and the pilots fighting to the end.

As a kid, I flew a AA DC-10 in 1981 and the cockpit video was still being shown....

I never thought of that,chilling. But true about the video of takeoff and landings shown on the big screen in front of the cabin ( before IFE screens on the backs of TVs). I looked forward to viewing on takeoffs.

LMP737 wrote:

william wrote:

The ineptitude in the DC-10 system's design is staggering along with the cost cutting. Talk about management team that was criminally liable.

.

The crash was caused by improper maintenance, pure and simple.

Yes, you are correct. AA should not have gone cheap and used a forklift to remove engines. But after the fact, it was possible for the pilots to save the aircraft. They did themselves no favor pulling back on thrust as trained with a loss of engine.

william wrote:

LMP737 wrote:

william wrote:

The ineptitude in the DC-10 system's design is staggering along with the cost cutting. Talk about management team that was criminally liable.

.

The crash was caused by improper maintenance, pure and simple.

Yes, you are correct. AA should not have gone cheap and used a forklift to remove engines. But after the fact, it was possible for the pilots to save the aircraft. They did themselves no favor pulling back on thrust as trained with a loss of engine.

Perhaps not, but those pilots put up a hell of fight and responded EXACTLY the way they were trained to do. I know you're not meaning to disparage the flight crew, but the events that transpired were beyond any comprehension of any training they had. They didn't have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight.

picarus wrote:

william wrote:

LMP737 wrote:

The crash was caused by improper maintenance, pure and simple.

Yes, you are correct. AA should not have gone cheap and used a forklift to remove engines. But after the fact, it was possible for the pilots to save the aircraft. They did themselves no favor pulling back on thrust as trained with a loss of engine.

Perhaps not, but those pilots put up a hell of fight and responded EXACTLY the way they were trained to do. I know you're not meaning to disparage the flight crew, but the events that transpired were beyond any comprehension of any training they had. They didn't have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight.

This is why we have investigators who analyze all aspects of the swiss cheese model. Had the hydraulics been designed with fuses, the forklift not used, the OEI proc been different, this would not have occurred. The notion that this was simply improper maintenance leaves the other critical elements out.