They can say that planes should be able to fly while losing an engine, but that usually refers to an engine that needs to be shut off, not when the engine breaks off, damaging other parts of the plane, leaking fluids, affecting aerodynamics, and worse of all, right at takeoff. This isn't a "glide safely to the ground from cruising", they had no safety of altitude to figure out what happened and respond with a margin for error.
There was another case of an engine falling off on take-off and it landed safely. But that was much later and improvements have been made. Mentour Pilot covers it, he's a flight instructor so is excellent at explaining the more technical detail.
That's what i was thinking, the hydraulics had to be damaged. The weight and aerodynamics had to be dangerously off as well.I also remember reading somewhere that the tail was damaged due to the engine falling off, but I could be wrong
Yeah, it’s definitely different when an engine detaches versus loses power. Not only the damage done by the engine coming off but the sudden loss of weight in that part of the plane makes it damn near impossible to control.
Well said, exactly what I was thinking. Sudden weight imbalance alone from the entire engine fully detaching at that altitude (or lack of) , sadly cant see anyone recovering that.
@@saragrant9749 The loss of mass on one side does throw off the center of gravity but in this case it would actually help the side that had no thrust which is the side that would dip if there was a single engine failure on a dual engine. It's the asymmetric thrust that would need to be applied right as all the control surfaces are changing from takeoff configuration to flight (like retracting flaps) that makes a difficult situation that much more difficult. I'm not a commercial jet pilot but I do have my fixed wing license and have experienced single engine flame out on a dual engine craft but at stable flight. The engine flipping over the wing just destroyed any chance the plane had of making it back to Earth safely. As noted above Mentour Pilot has multiple videos about the topic of asymmetric thrust.
It's still sad to learn that the crew chief, Earl Russell Marshall, who monitored the aircraft during its final inspection, committed suicide. He couldn't live with the tragedy.
Most crew chiefs do after a crash, be it a heavy or a smaller plane with one fatality. I left specifically to not be responsible for a crash, because there were four of us, on over 30 DC-10s
My Dad's brother was on that flight, he was coming home from Vietnam to be with his wife who was having their first child, a baby girl, my cousin! My father was devastated when he heard about this horrific accident! My father recently passed away in Feb. and I bet he's up there with his brother in paradise! RIP Dad and Uncle Rick 😢
This crash is one of four fatal crashes with that flight number. That's why no U.S. airlines have the flight number 191. It's considered a cursed number in aviation
@@robr2389yeah Delta Flt 191 it was the boeing 727.. not the L1011 into the water tank.. the pilots forgot to set the slats on front of the wings for take off
@@thomasgriffin8269 Yep. That's right. Both accidents happened at DFW. Remember it now. That 727 three man flight deck crew got distracted by a flight attendant and a whole bunch of non-pertinent conversation. Didn't complete the pre-takeoff checklist. Totally preventable.
The engine just didn't fall off and drop down. It was under full thrust and when the rear pylon broke free the engine tried to go forward and instead rotated on the front pins. That caused it to go up and over the wing. As it did that it tore out the hydraulic lines that were above the engine. The stress fractures were also complicated by the means of lifting the engine/pylon assembly. They were using a forklift to raise the engine up to take the load off of the pins. What had happened was that in the middle of removing the pins they had a lunch break and it was left with half the pins still in and the forklift to take the weight. The forklift had a very slow leak in its hydraulic cylinder so over the lunch break the load was taken up entirely by the remaining pins. The NTSB report even went so far as to find the forktruck that was used and to do forensic inspections on it as well.
@@SittingBearProd Is there anything you won’t blame on unions? Right nonunion people would’ve been forced to work nonstop through the entire day with no breaks.
Training for Naval Aviation is a bit different, but even our mechs learn a bit about this in A-school. We have our own history of mishaps to pore over and learn from, but the civvie side also has some critical failures that are excellent learning experiences, across the board.
@@thecontraguy5536 It depends on the use of the aircraft you work on. Commercial aircraft have very stringent documentation requirements and licensed certified mechanics. There is a lot of overlap in terms of automotive repair and fixing airplanes. You will often see automotive based components on general aviation aircraft like alternators and AC compressors.
A friend of mine knew Captain Lux personally. He was a friend of her family, and she called him Uncle Walter. She told me he hadn't been scheduled to fly that day, and at the last minute traded places with the pilot who was was supposed to take that flight. She also told me about how his widow had to hire an answering service, because she was getting too many crank calls from people claiming to be American Airlines and saying he needed to get back to work. It amazes me how heartless and evil people can be.
That is true. One of my dads best friends is the son of the original pilot(they were teenagers at the time). He said his sister(the pilots daughter) was involved in a fairly serious accident the day before the flight and Captain Lux generously offered to swap weeks on their rotation so he could stay home and get everything settled for his daughters recovery. The son told me his father struggled with PTSD and survivors guilt for the rest of his life because of it
As a Chicago cab driver,I took a really nice old lady to the American terminal for that flight at 1 pm. Shocked and saddened when I learned of the crash.
God bless her soul. May she rest in peace. May perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of the faithful departed through the Mercy of God rest in peace in Jesus' Holy Name, Amen.
That crash still haunts me at times because my dad was almost on that flight. He had finished a business meeting in Chicago early and was trying to get on that flight. Fortunately, he was told that the flight was completely booked, so he had to wait for his original flight. Man, was he lucky and I’m always blessed that he is still around.
@davidclaro152 I'm sorry, but that has no bearing on anything. Your dad's flight was just as likely to crash as this one or any other. To think otherwise is superstitious.
It can't "haunt" you if your dad is still alive. It might come to mind if you wish your dad dead...and he's not...but you misunderstand "haunting" with your statement. Just FYI.
Had a friend who had just completed Basic Training. US Army. She was coming home to Chicago for a week prior to heading to her additional training. Her relatives were hysterical as first reports were not specific as to what plane had crashed. She wound up circling the airport for almost 2 hours before they allowed her plane to land.
The miracle in all this was the fact that only 2 people on the ground were killed. If you look at a map of Chicago, this could have been so much worse.
It is quite surprising. In most cases crews will try to ditch their aircraft away from a populated place. But in this case there wasn't any chance to do so. Pure luck it wasn't much worse.
OMG - I know somebody who survived Flight 191. He was late for the flight and the doors shut in his face, and he was arguing with the gate people when the flight took off. He still had his boarding pass in his wallet when I worked with him (This would have been in the mid-1990s). I can't say what he was like before the accident, but he was still spooked when I met him. As I suppose anyone would be.
@@richardwadholm4019 I guess it can feel spooky, but it just wasn't his time to pass on. Fate (some say God) intervenes in our plans sometimes. Imagine being so angry when you're too late to board a plane or a ship, and it turned out it was AA Flight 11, or the Titanic. There are many famous examples of those near misses.
I have been here since the start of this channel, The music and soothing voice - all is just perfection. Never change any of this as it is perfect. Greetings from Mallorca/Spain!
@@hilaryeckberg7884 They were considered by many to be the unofficial flag carrier before their demise, but yes, we have never had an official flag carrier airline and it has certainly never been American.
Obviously there were passengers and others at the airport who took pictures. Those photographs were not as well publicized as the Michael Laughlin photos.
A family friend was on that flight, coming home from a business trip. I remember watching the news that afternoon and feeling so bad for his family. RIP, Clark.
@@robertmielke6196 He had such a lively personality and was a bit of a prankster. Our families attended the same small church in Costa Mesa. I was a year younger than his daughter.
No, the pilot didn’t know it was all over. The pilot knew his instrument panel went blank. Unfortunately, for the plane, if the engine on the opposite side was the one that came off they might’ve had a chance to safely land.
I was working as a Nurses Aid at the closest Trauma Hospital to OHare. The hospital staff were informed to be ready for a mass casualty and extra staff was called in to work. Sadly, there were no survivors. We could see the smoke from the west-facing windows.
ironically, considering the spate of accidents that made the American public doubt, the DC 10, which eventually led to McDonnell Douglas, going bankrupt, some refurbished DC-10s equipped as firefighting tankers now perform the most jaw-dropping aerial stunts and climbouts almost all year round, protecting millions of homes and saving thousands of lives. Tanker 910 is legendary for flying at extremely low altitude to lay down up to a mile of flame retardant, and has occasionally done unauthorized drops to save firefighters who have gotten surrounded.
Both the DC-10 and Lockheed Tri-Star were amazing aircraft that faced a lot of backlash for issues that weren't completely warranted. Although the DC-10 cargo door blowout events were definitely manufacturer error, and the lessons learned in the Windsor, Ontario blowout should have completely prevented the Turkish Airlines crash, but since no lives were lost, it wasn't prioritized until it was too late.
@@BritanniaPacific. USAF is retiring the KC-10 by the end of this year, there are still a few flying. I think that’s a mistake as all of the kinks & problems of the KC-46 Pegasus haven’t been worked out yet.
I see that photo with the plane on its left side spewing hydraulic fluid, and you can imagine what the horror that the people were experiencing on that plane.
What wasn't mentioned in this video is that AA had installed a large screen at the front of the plane so the passengers could see what the pilots see. A new feature. After realizing that everyone on board watched their own deaths hurtling towards them, AA discontinued that.
considering that you so fast can't experience anything. it happens in a very short span and it's more tha tyou deal inside with the turbulences and then you are dead. people picture it always so horribly but if you know aviation cases when the whole airplane spins and twists for 30 minutes and then crashes it is way worse especially if it goes down in height then up again with pressure etc.
My father was a check airman/captain for AA and on the day of this accident he finished signing off a crew on a flight from New York to Chicago. He and his crew went to the ticket agent to see about getting a flight back to LAX. He was told there was no room on the first flight out and that he and his crew would be on the second flight. After some time the agent contacted my father letting him know he and his crew would be able to go on the first flight after all. Upon arrival to LAX they found out about the crash. My dad knew the flight crew and stewardesses on AA191. After this accident US carriers who operated DC-10s trained for incidents such as this one. My dad told me that it was recoverable if flight crews had been trained to respond to an incident like this one. My father flew over 27,000 flight hours over the course of his life. He was one of the first to be trained on both the 747 and DC-10 for American Airlines. He preferred the DC-10. RIP dad. I miss you every day.
God bless his soul. May he rest in peace. May perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of the faithful departed through the Mercy of God rest in peace in Jesus' Holy Name, Amen.
I worked on DC-10s at Northwest as a flight attendant. It was my favorite widebody to work. Very manageable and layed out nicely. Loved the World Business Class up front. Flight AA 191 has a lot of folklore surrounding it. People had premonitions, some people just missed the flight by minutes, very interesting stories. There was even a man who had murdered his girlfriend and said she was a passenger on the flight. That didn't work out for him. Flight 191 was a completely full flight. Captain Lux wasn't even supposed to be on it. He took it for a friend! Lots of paranormal activity in that trailer park for years after.
I had the premonition. I had had a recurring dream leading up to this. This dream was an aircraft in an unusual attitude going low across the sky, right to left, and disappearing behind the terminal building. In my dream, the aircraft was nose directly up, tail directly down with the top of the aeroplane facing me, wings left and right. It took the same trajectory the accident aeroplane did. When it disappeared behind the terminal in my dream, I knew it had crashed but there was no flames or smoke. I had the same dream night after night until shortly before it happened. I was nine years old at the time and I'm from, and still live in, the UK, not the USA. Someone once said this event was the one with the highest number of premonitions in recorded history.
Yes, of course. Lots of people said they had had premonitions after they saw the news reports. But the actual number of people who had premonitions was exactly 0.
I knew someone who lived in a nearby trailer park who was one of the first people on the scene. His description was beyond. Body parts hanging off a fence is what stuck with me the most. I dont know how anyone seeing and experiencing such trauma could not be affected emotionally for life. For sure my friend was. At the time i was living about 15 miles to the east in a different suburb but remember watching the news being reported on tv. It was horrific.
I lived in a nearby suburb close to the airport and remember that Friday afternoon vividly. It was a warm and slightly hazy afternoon. I saw the smoke out our living room window and said to my late mother the tank farm for the airport was on fire. Then we heard it was a plane crash. I remember surrounding communities and the sirens of emergency services. For years, I couldn’t drive down Touhy Avenue off Elmhurst Road Route 83. It was a field with a small, randomly dotted trailer park. It could’ve been worse had she crashed onto the Northwest Tollway which led into The Kennedy Expressway which was the major artery for NW Chicago and suburbs. What was truly shocking was there nothing left but what looked like shards of tin foil from a DC-10. It was seared into anyone from the Chicagoland area like the prior year 1978 with the horror of JW Gacy.
My mother was friends with a family that was on that flight. She was in shock when we saw it on the news. Being a talented violinist, she offered to play at the service for that family. Not wanting to impose on people I didn't know, and it being a small family service, I went downtown and spent the day at the Art institute and walked around Chicago. We stayed at a hotel just a few blocks from the church. She remembers how hard it was to play for the funeral, rare for her, due to the fact that the entire family perished. They were neighbors of another good friend.
On average, over 100 people die in automobile crashes and collisions EVERYDAY in the US. But the death toll is diffused. Imagine the outrage if ONE passenger jetliner, with 100 passengers, crashed everyday in the US! Most of us all need our cars in this country. Slow down!
I'm an Aircraft mechanic and i can tell you, we don't handover half jobs to the next shift. It was a bad practice, but you don't pass a fork lifter with load to your next shift mate to finish the maneuver.
Yes, but it was extremely common back then which is why other aircraft were also damaged. The other issue was even without the shift change. The forklift was too coarse of a tool to handle the reinstallation.
@@neilkurzman4907 I'm from back then. The fact was that the new shift fork lift operator smashed the engine to high damaging the pilon mounts and cracking them. Cheers mate thanks for the comment
@@danijuggernaut No, that’s not what happened. The Forklift sagged because it had a hydraulic leak. But remember this wasn’t the only damaged plane. several others were damaged in a similar way. It just wasn’t unacceptable way to do the job.
At the time my family lived about ten miles north of O'Hare and we could see the plume of white smoke from the wreck. Eerie coincidence: When the accident happened, the current issue of _Chicago_ magazine had an interview with author Judith Wax written shortly before her death in the crash - not only was the interview on page _191_ of the magazine, but on page 192 was an ad for American Airlines showing a DC-10!
I barely remember this when I was a kid. I think it was the first time I ever saw, "We interrupt this program for a special report" for a local news event. 3:04 pm. yeah, just about the time I got home from school it would have been hitting the news
I was a kid living in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and home sick from school that day. I remember the breaking TV coverage on the local Chicago stations. That one picture is so haunting.
I lived in the Chicago area at the time - I was in a store where there was radio music playing and they broke in to make that announcement. At first they just said "a plane" and I was thinking, "please let it be a cargo plane" but I soon found out otherwise :(
I was 9 years old at the time. I remember seeing the column of smoke when I got off the school bus. My friend and I ran to her house to turn on the TV and see what was going on. We didn't expect what we saw.
The lack of altitude to give them some time to potentially solve the problem is the final nail in the coffin, but the dirt was already on the casket. RIP.
Another contributing factor was the fact that the DC-10 emergency checklist the pilots were using at that time required them to reduce their speed by a couple knots instead of going to full power. This reduction of speed made the loss of lift on the left wing (from the flaps having been retracted from the loss of hydraulic fluid from the left engine tearing out the lines upon separation) even worse. Sadly, simulators showed that had they not reduced their speed, there would have been enough lift on the left wing that they could have continued their takeoff climb. Tragic.
My uncle was on that flight. It was devastating for our entire family, mostly because my uncle (early 40s) had worked as a mid-level insurance agent for years and finally received a major promotion and moved from Michigan to California. We were all so happy for and proud of him. He was returning home from a business trip that completed early, which allowed him catch an earlier flight home. The decision to take the earlier flight cost him his life. We were fortunate his body was identified quickly and we held a funeral within days, albeit closed casket. I watched as his son descended into a drug filled lifestyle with friends who took advantage of his new found wealth from a lawsuit settlement and the massive life insurance policy my uncle's job afforded him. We almost lost him as well. Thankfully God stepped in and stopped his downward spiral. I pray for those who lost friends and relatives on this flight. I know first hand how it can further damage or kill others as a result of the tragedy. My Aunt and cousins still live productive lives today, 45 years later. Proof there is a God.
So sorry this happened to your family and that you lost your uncle. Thankfully God restored your cousin and though I'm sure you all miss your uncle very much. May God continue to bless you & your entire family.
God bless his soul and the souls of all lost in that tragedy. May they rest in peace. May perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of the faithful departed through the Mercy of God rest in peace, Amen. God bless and comfort your family and all who lost a loved one in this tragic accident. All this in Jesus' Holy Name, Amen.
I often wonder about the families left behind after something like this happens. As well as the circumstances of the people on those flights. Like the one guy who ran late to board that plane in Brazil last week. He was angry they wouldn't let him on....Little did he know then, that him not being allowed on that flight, saved his life. How many, if any have similar stories? Or like you said, you uncle finished early and got on an earlier flight of which took his life. I am so sorry for your entire family and for the effects it had on your cousin. Much love to you all.
Minor correction: American Airlines is indeed the largest airline in the US (and currently the world) by passengers carried, but the United States does not have a designated "flag carrier" airline.
@@SpicyTexan64 It's a transport company that has preferential treatment by a given country. Sometimes it's wholly owned by the country itself. Airlines like British Airways and Air Canada come to mind; both were previously state-owned.
Did you know: that there was a screen at the front of the plane that showed what it would look like from the captains view. They quickly got rid of that feature after this flight.
What happened during the engine removal was that when it was being replaced, the maintenance crew had inserted the rear pin in the pylon but quit work for the day with the front pins still out. When they returned the next day the fork lift had dropped a little and had cracked the rear bracket on the pylon but wasn't noticed. This is how the crack got there.
My dad was an Aircraft engineer and his favourite aircraft was the VC10 (Vickers)... It never occurred to me why he was always so quick or defensive to correct people when they thought he said a DC10.... Now I know why!! (I was very young and always assumed I'd heard wrong or something)
🤷♀️ I'd assume the same thing since I normally do hear the wrong thing. Usually with funny consequences 😅. But this is one thing thing I would definitely try to get right 😬.
The VC10 was a favourite with passengers. It certainly was a beautiful and well designed airplane! It was designed with more powerful engines than standard in order to operate safely at high density altitude airports. As a result it was slightly less efficient than some competitors and fell out of favor with management.
My first flight ever was when I was two years old, on a Super VC10 from the UK to India. BOAC. I am a member of the BOAC Junior Jet Club, with a badge and log book with the signature of the pilots on all the aeroplanes I flew on that trip. Later, I was a volunteer at Brooklands Museum, the site where they built the VC10.
One of the most morbid aspects of this crash was that the American DC-10 fleet was equipped with cameras in the tail facing toward the nose, and the live footage was shown on the in-flight entertainment screens throughout the cabin. I don't know that anyone's confirmed whether the screens lost power after the engine detached, but if they didn't, the passengers would have had a clear view of their impending demise as the nose of the plane spiraled toward the ground.
Yes, I thought this was the flight that the passengers watched it going down as if they were in the cockpit. Glad the cables broke and the passengers did see.
My dad works with highly specialized instruments used to measure chemical reactions and such. I don’t know the name of his job ‘cause I’m not a nerd, but yeah he knows a lot about maintaining intricate machines. Every time he talks about someone at his work “finding a short cut” in the cleaning process of one of these machines, he compares it to “taking the whole pylon off the plane. Just don’t do it” The people that build things and then come up with instructions for how to handle those things did not “miss” a short cut when writing their instructions! Every choice is deliberate, and if you can’t tell why your way is dumber than the official way… just assume that it is anyway!
You should find out the name of your father's role and ask for a simplified explanation of it bruh. Sounds like an occupation to be respected and proud of
If that's what you think, you give companies way too much credit. I build test equipment for electronics lab testing. I can tell you most of the cleaning procedures are not even close to being the best or most accurate way to go about it.
It was actually a cheap and reliable workhorse aircraft. But being cheap ended up working against it because airlines were reluctant to spend the money to properly and safely maintain it. Thus a lot of accidents were caused by crappy maintenance practices... including this one
I first heard about this due to a paranormal story: someone named David Booth had a series of nightmares about the plane crashing for several days leading up to the disaster. His story has gone down as one of the most famous "nightmare premonitions" of all time,.
Ah yes, I saw that on Arthur C Clarke's programme. The colour photos they showed of the plane on its side in the air and the explosion seconds later freaked me out as a kid. I don't know if Booth's dreams were just a coincidence or if they were a enuine premonition, but it was uncanny.
And design flaw. The fact instruments doed when one engine seperated is a big issue. If they still had instrumentation they might have saved the plane. Also by having the proper way to remove the engine be so time consuming and complicated guaranteed people looking for short cut. This this an engineer and design failure
A need to save money means a lot of potential redundancy is edited out of airframes and their operating systems, so that there's 'only one of this, only one of that' and there's nowhere to go when something vital goes wrong.
@@paulrasmussen8953 NO no no. AA was given the option to have the upgrades put in but they cheaped out. Once again airline fault not manufacturer. Also not government mandated so why spend the extra money?
As a kid in the ‘70s I remember the concern over the safety of the DC-10 as so many incidents & crashes had occurred. My parents didn’t fly a lot, but during that time they were adamant that they would NOT travel on a DC-10. I remember this was the feeling of a lot of people.
My mom lived in the trailer park next to the crash site. She said she was doing her homework and suddenly there was a huge boom and her cat jumped so high it hit the ceiling. My grandpa was one of the first people on the scene since he was the manager at the office for the trailer park. Nobody saw him until later that day. Everyone thought he died from the impact.
@@fluffyfour DEI chooses D, E, and I before choosing the best qualified. We all pay the price. Like our now resigned Secret Service leader. It perpetuates ineptness.
I was in my car, driving South along the east shore of Lake Michigan, listening to a Chicago radio station. I will never forget the horror of the news announcement and later learning that several people I knew had loved ones on that flight. Terrible tragedy.
I remember this was shortly after PSA 182 went down in San Diego, I looked it up, September 25, 1978. That was a Boeing 727, my often faulty memory thought it too was a DC-10. It collided with a Cessna 172 that was not where it was supposed to be and there was some confusion between the tower and 182 where exactly that was. No survivors. Good job on the video as always.
The Cessna broke BRAVO airspace and collided with the airliner. They almost had a similar event in LA a few months ago where again a small plane broke BRAVO airspace and an airliner had do abruptly dive below it during final approach.
I do it every few weekends. It's called skydiving. The scary part is closing your eyes. You KNOW the ground is getting closer, you just don't know HOW close.
If you want this story told with even more detail, as well as the other 2 plane accidents mentioned here with the cargo doors, I highly recommend Mentour Pilot. He's easily one of the best at narrating and explaining airplane disasters without scaring people away from flying. I've actually felt safer after watching his videos.
I remember watching this on Mayday, you can really feel the intensity of the episode. Even though it’s a reenactment seeing how they must have felt must’ve been terrifying and horrifying all at once.
I saw this plane crash walking home from school. I was with my brother and we looked up to see a plane sideways and falling. The boom and following fire will last with me for a lifetime. I was in 1st grade and have been petrified of flying ever since. God bless those poor souls on that flight.❤😢
Im not one for believing in supernatural stuff but my aunt Cindy and my three cousins lived in that trailer park. My aunts trailer literally dodged a bullet. The trailer in front of hers received damage from fire and human remains. My aunt said for about a year after that crash crazy things were happening in that trailer park. She saw dark shadows walking around in that field in the dark. Dogs would howl while looking in the direction of that field. Some residents heard voices over there and heard knocking on their doors and nobody being there when they opened the door. She got tired of being creeped out and moved.
@ice9594 I definitely believe her. My Aunt is a no nonsense straight shooter. She didn't believe in it either until she witnessed things nearly every night. She moved in April of 1980 and things were still happening. Its to be expected when over 270 lives are extinguished in a split second in the same area.
Wow! I'm sure those were the spirits of the passengers, walking around, asking for help. The crash happened so fast those poor people didn't know what hit them..I trust the dog's instincts; their senses are so much sharper than a human's. Very interesting story!
It's Tuesday again. To be fair to the DC-10 it wasn't that bad of a plane overall, pilots loved it and it was ahead of its time and it's similar to how the 737 MAX has tarnished the reputation of the 737 though but I did read somewhere that the stick shaker was not included with the aircraft and was an optional extra which blows my mind. EDIT: Lux wasn't meant to be flying that plane, he had switched schedules with another captain though. The famous photos of the plane spiralling down are haunting in their own right too and were all over the news globally though. Also Boeing bought up McDonnell Douglas in the 90s, make of that what you will
@@woodenseagull1899 How can a plane manage to look ugly in a livery as minimal and good looking as American's livery though? That's quite a feat but remember, at that time trijets were seen as the future, you had MD with their idea of putting engines on or in the DC-10's case in the tail, the DC-9 with tail mounted engines, just on the sides. The DC-8 was more traditional with engines under the wing only. Okay compared to a 727, the DC-10 didn't have the clean lines but it was by no means a bad looking plane. For that, the Ilyushin Il-62 and Vickers VC-10 both look far far worse with the four engines attached to the very back of the fuselage though.
I remember in a documentary that this plane had a camera installed at the nose with a live feed video for passengers to get a "pilots view" of the takeoff. When this happened, they had a live video in front of every passenger showing the hanger getting closer before they crashed. I can't imagine anything worse in this situation.
I don't think passengers were watching TV as the plane was tilted 90 degrees, plus I don't think the pilots saw much either 😢 I had heard about that camera too.
This was 1979. There were no video screens in front of every passenger. LCD screens didnt exist. There was only a single screen on the center bulkhead of each passenger section. This was a projector based system to watch movies, and not video based.
@@arturoaguilar6002 Well, those passenger systems ran off of the rear engine so yeah they would have been active, but I doubt anyone was watching. They were probably all (or most) in crash position. BRACE BRACE BRACE! HEAD DOWN, STAY DOWN!
"BTW, the USA doesn't have a flag carrier." This stood out for me at first, but by strict definition it does: under US law, any US-based airline operating international routes is a US flag carrier airline. So American Airlines is just one of many US flag carriers.
@@najaB76the term "flag carrier airline" implies that said airline is the property of that nation's government. The US Government doesn't own any passenger airlines. So no, you're wrong.
Agreed, the US never had a flag carrier. You could argue that for a time Pan Am was the 'de facto' flag carrier, but I don't think you could argue that American Airlines has been been the flag carrier
Though the definition under US law is technically correct. Historically, the term 'flag carrier' referred to airlines that were government owned. Carriers like Air Canada, British Airways, Lufthansa, and were all, at one time, owned by their respective governments before being privatized in the 1980s and 90s. The US government has never owned/operated an airline in its history and as such, never had an "official" flag carrier. Though many carriers throughout the years have seen as unofficial flag carriers. Namely Pan Am, which for several years was the only US air carrier permitted by the US government to conduct international operations. @@najaB76
@@SkunkApe407 "So no, you're wrong." I suggest you do a little research before making such a definitive "correction". Various US laws (for example the _Federal Acquisition Regulation_ ) define a US Flag Air Carrier thusly: "U.S.-flag air carrier means an air carrier holding a certificate under section 401 of the Federal Aviation Act of1958." So no it doesn't have anything to do with government ownership in the general case (for example the French and Netherlands governments have minority stakes in Air France-KLM and the UK government has zero ownership of British Airways), and in the case of the USA there is a specific legal definition.
I lived in the Chicago suburbs about 15 miles from O’Hare. I was 9, and the wee gal who joined all the boys on our bicycles to get closer (none of us knew it would be impossible). At the edge of our neighborhood was a huge field, and I remember seeing smoke going on and on. I swear I felt the crash hit up in my bedroom, but I wouldn’t be surprised that much of this was a patchwork of that bike ride and the sad, seemingly never-ending news coverage.
I was in middle school in 1979. I clearly remember seeing that photo on the front page of both our local papers. It absolutely terrified me. I used to fly with my grandmother to visit relatives every summer, so I was a fairly experienced flyer by age 12. I had no fear of flying before this crash, but I no longer wanted to fly after reading about this crash. I only flew two more times throughout middle and high school, the soonest being in 1984. Thankfully, I’ve gotten over my fear of flying, which is good since I fly three or four times per year now. My big fear now is dealing with TSA in the airport…
The crash site has been mostly paved over. Semi trailers use the spot for parking now. The memorial is almost two miles to the east of the site and was not erected for decades afterwards.
My dad was a pilot for American. We were heading east on route 64 near St. Charles & saw the smoke. When we arrived at home my dad was watching the news coverage and he knew the Captain. My dad was a 727 Captain at the time. Later in his career he was a 1st officer on the DC-10.
I used to live in Chicago when I was a kid. I'll never forget that day. It was beautiful spring weather, and I was playing softball with my friends when someone's mom came out and told us what happened. We lived pretty close to the airport, so we were always seeing planes flying overhead. At first the news reported that it was a cargo plane, but then they corrected the story.
I lived in the northwest suburbs and I vividly remember that very warm Friday afternoon just prior to the Memorial Day weekend. It was very gusty and windy as I recall, but with no threat of storms.
I was living in the western suburbs at the time and was 11 years old. We experienced the same thing. Beautiful day and I remember my mom coming outside and we looked to the northeast. You could see smoke. It happened on a Friday at 3:04 pm. So it must have just been home from school for a short time.
The whole "taking the pylon off with the engine" thing was, IIRC, done because the number of bolts that would have to be unscrewed and re-screwed upon removal/reattachment was MUCH greater at the engine/pylon connection than at the pylon/wing connection, meaning that removing the engine from the pylon or reattaching it during maintenance would take much, MUCH longer. I can't remember where I read it, but one airline, instead of using a forklift from below, put together an overhead hoist type of system to do the job, and none of their planes had any of the damage found in the airlines who used forklifts.
I know at least Continental used the one piece procedure and in the post accident inspection campaign, found a few aft pylon bulkheads cracked. Fortunately, the cracks were small enough that they were found before they grew big enough to let go.
Every video you make excites me more than almost anything all week. Thank you for your dedication, quality, and quest for knowledge. I really appreciate all you do.
My father was working for American Airlines in 1979. He was able to determine that my family flew the same DC10 1 week earlier into Chicago by looking up its registration number. I was on that same aircraft only 1 week earlier. I was in Chicago when the crash occurred. My father retired in 1981and passed away years ago.
They probably weren’t watching a screen. The plane was rolled over on its side, so they were most likely getting into crash position, I know this doesn’t make it any better, maybe makes it worse. But it all happened in seconds, so their brains would have put up a barrier…like being startled and it was over really fast, and the shock of hitting would have knocked them out. 💔
The screaming aboard that jet would have been horrific. Thank God they only knew they were going to die for about 5 seconds. My uncle was a corporate pilot but was off work that day in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His two coworkers were on the taxiway in their Learjet awaiting takeoff on the same runway and saw the entire thing happen. This awful crash affected THOUSANDS of people's lives forever. God bless each and every person involved with this terrible event on May 25, 1979.
I've always been leery of flying. The first time I ever flew was in the summer of 1979, when I went from Edmonton to Yellowknife to visit a friend. I was sat right behind the wing on a DC10. I remember thinking: "Oh, great. I get to watch the engine fall off." It was a form of gallows humour, as I was really terrified. I didn't take my seatbelt off for the entire flight, which was uneventful, and I'm sure I left fingernail marks in the arm rests. The last time I flew was a couple of years ago, when I was airlifted to Vancouver during a medical crises. I was so sick I was hallucinating, so I wasn't lucid enough to be scared. Thank you for these interesting and well-presented videos.
My dad was a kid when the THY DC-10 crashed in France and he and most of his generation still resent MD for producing such a horrifyingly dangerous aircraft. The way that people were sucked out of that plane still strapped into their damn seats, the way that plane was shredded on impact, the heroic attempts of the pilots to rescue a doomed flight, it absolutely traumatized his generation.
EVERY plane crash ends up looking the same. Why it traumatized his "generation" is unfathomable when plane crashes happened all over the world in all manner of aircraft.
The really sad part is, that after that crash the DC-10 was thoroughly fixed. It became 1 of the most reliable and beloved by pilots planes in service. But those high profile accidents are all, ppl remember. Plenty of plane types, fx. the 737, have had far more casualties. But the reason for the Turkish Airlines crash being so impactful for the DC-10 was, that it was due to an already known problem, that they had first chosen to ignore with a faulty "failsafe" in design and then failed to properly fix after the previous incident 2 years earlier (American flight 96). And ofc that it was a completely full flight (due to strikes and rebookings), so the casualty count was huge, in fact the deadliest crash until the Tenerife disaster in 1977 and the deadliest single airplane crash until JAL123 in 1985.
That amount is not what the passengers families received. That's just the fine from the FAA.The widow of the pilot Mrs. Lux, got 4.1 million alone in the civil lawsuit.
😱 I was 13 and gasped out loud at that photo across page 1 of the Dallas Morning News. I am now 59 and STILL go breathless every time my flight makes a hard turn while climbing during take-off! 😖🙊😬
I was on a DC-10 a few days before this incident. I clearly recall looking at the wing and engine thinking to myself and in awe of the forces involved keeping it "on" the wing. Sitting at a dinner table in metro Detroit, we had a moment of silence that evening for all the souls lost. Condolences to the survivors. May those that died that day Rest in Peace.
On average, over 100 people die in automobile crashes and collisions EVERYDAY in the US. But the death toll is diffused. Imagine the outrage if ONE passenger jetliner, with 100 passengers, crashed everyday in the US! Most of us all need our cars in this country. Slow down!
This was probably the best video I've seen concerning this disaster. I remember this day so well when it happened, as I was meeting some friends after work and they asked if I'd heard about it. Very sad day and it was amazing that something like just skipping a few steps in doing maintenance caused this to happen.
McDonnell-Douglas, the company that Boeing would later merge with and whose cost-cutting-above-all-else leadership took over Boeing and led to things like the 737 Max 8. No one knew in 1979 how prophetic this event was.
This wasn't just down to McDonnell-Douglas or the DC10, though. It was mainly due to American Airlines lack-a-daisical maintenance procedures. The lack of redundancy in the design met all international requirements at the time and it's only because of such incidents we have better systems now.
The DC-10 definitely had its problems. And it was unforgivable, that the cargo door problem was not fixed after the first incident. In fact, once the problems were fixed, the DC-10 became 1 of the most reliable and beloved by pilots planes in service. Something that has sadly been forgotten. But this was not about the plane type. This was about the faulty maintenance, about the airlines making up their own "procedures" to save time and cost and ignoring the maintenance manuals and safety rules. Cant blame this 1 on the plane or the manufacturer.
This disaster has been covered on so many channels already, but damn if I love hearing about it every time. It's not that I don't have compassion for the victims of the crash. I do. But wow, what an epic failure of the maintenance crew. That guy that captured the final moments of the flight is a hero, even if that image causes me nightmares. I know it's a right-place-right-time situation, but it's fascinating to me the way United 175 is fascinating when it hit the second WTC tower. RIP, passengers, and hopefully your last moments were swift and forgiving.
How does an airplane built of light metal fly “through” a skyscraper made of steel columns like a knife through butter, with news video showing its undamaged nose coming out the other side?…Answer: It doesn’t! There’s more to that story than most people know or would believe.
@@ice9594It penetrates the building because it was made of aluminum and titanium and flying at 600 miles per hour. Is it your belief that there were no planes that day?
I was at a hospital recovering from surgery. I was doing my laps in the hall saw the smoke from from the sight. It was a horrible sight. Will never forget it
I was at the top of the Sears Tower when the plane crashed. We saw a big plume of black smoke in the distance, and wondered what could have caused such a fire. By the time we took the blue line back to the Rosemont stop, the Tribune had a small special edition newspaper for sale at the newsstand, covering the crash. (Iirc, that story only had a headline and there were no details inside).
Back when big-city newspapers were truly badass. I went to college in the ‘80s wanting to be “Lois Lane, Girl Reporter” working at the Daily Planet! By the mid ‘90s print journalism was already in decline. It’s really a shame what’s left of the newspapers of the 20th century.
Oh this is gonna be an interesting one to watch - I can see O’hare from my house, if I’d lived where i do now back when the crash happened I could have more or less watched it unfold. It’s surreal, seeing massive planes flying so close to the ground
Here's an interesting fact: Philly soul songwriters Gene McFadden and John Whitehead (better known as McFadden and Whitehead) were promoting their 1979 disco/black anthem hit "Ain't No Stopping Us Now," which was supposed to be on the American Airlines 191 to Los Angeles but they were late for the flight. The tragic plane crash has impacted the two men for the rest of their lives.
Actor Ben Gazzara ("Run For Your Life" TV series star) and director Peter Bogdanovich ("What's Up Doc?") were also booked for that flight but missed the flight. Bogdanovich directed Gazzara in the 1981 movie They All Laughed that also starred ill-fated Dorothy Stratton, the Playboy Centerfold model who was murdered by her jealous husband.
I heard Casey Kasem mention that on a replay of the 8-04-1979 American Top 40 show. He said they missed the flight because they stayed in Chicago to do another interview with a local reporter.
They also said that they’d been trying to take a positive outlook in life and felt that the good vibes kept then off that plane. Casey Kasem mentioned that.
I flew that route on AA exactly one month earlier from LA to Chicago. It was a weird feeling knowing that the people on that plane were watching the takeoff from their seats as they had them up on the screen showing the pilot's view. I was 16 at the time and a plane nerd and a few months later I called AA at Chicago and found out that at that time there were 4 AA on that route. You just never know when your time is up. Those people had a few seconds of horror then nothing. There are worse ways to go.
A couple of notes. The first note is that there was an element of extra horror that the OP didn't cover. There was a brand new piece of technology being premiered on this flight: A camera that showed the view out the cockpit windscreen to the passengers when a movie wasn't playing. So every passenger on that plane got to watch their deaths approaching rapidly, live and on camera. After 191 crashed, the technology was removed from all other planes and has not been used again to this day. From what I have heard, there are actual superstitions about it among some pilots to this day about such a thing tempting fate. The other problem was, as mentioned below, the engine didn't just fall off, it *peeled away across the top of the wing,* and took part of the leading edge of the wing with it. That severed the hydraulic lines and caused the flaps and slats to retract. At that point, *no matter what the pilots did, the plane was doomed.* The plane was very low, and the retraction caused a near-instant stall on the *left* wing. A wingstall causes an immediate and, at that altitude, fatal roll. The stick shakers wouldn't have saved them. Only isolation valves to prevent the whole left wing hydraulic system from collapsing would have done that - *all* the control surfaces on that wing collapsed with the hydraulics. Had they more altitude they might have been able to equalize the lift on both wings, prevent the wingstall from turning into a spin, and try and turn the plane with engines and rudder. There just was no time. And finally: The reason those maintenance crews did what they did was pressure from airline management. Planes on the ground aren't making any money, so they were pushed to take shortcuts. the engine shortcut looked like a no brainer - 4 bolts vs. 32 cut the time by 3/4 in removing the engine and reinstalling it. But it, as the OP said, was a fatal shortcut. The airline was punished by a slap to the wrist. The maintenance chief was scapegoated and eventually killed himself. It took the FAA stepping in and *forcing* the airlines, as a whole, to follow the repair manuals to put an end to it.
I was wondering why this very reasoned and articulate comment had only two likes...and then I saw it was only a few hours old. My faith in humanity has been restored. 🙂(Thank you especially for making the very good point that the airlines pushed for faster and faster repairs, then passed the buck to the poor grunts on the ground when people died.)
@@wobby1268 I'm always a bit late to the party, and I'm used to having my comments get barely any likes - they tend to be long and carefully written, which is absolutely out of place for RU-vid. 🤣 Worse, I probably repeat stuff people below have said already and collected most of the likes for. But I keep writing them anyway.
@@ArchTeryx00 I don't know if you meant this literally, but the cockpit cameras did not debut on this flight, as they were already widely known and popular at AA. Maybe it was fairly recent though.
@@cchris874 It was based on a documentary about the flight I saw on the Canadian series Mayday, explaining that that was the first time the closed circuit camera has been used by AA and after the crash they all got pulled.
Only the slats retracted on the left wing. The flaps did not retract. At the time the first officer started flying the jet as directed by the flight director pitch command bars on his ADI, the jet was flying at V2 plus 8 knots or so which was a few knots above the no-slat stall speed. Per the engine out on takeoff procedure which calls for climb out at V2, the first officer following the pitch command pulled back on the control column to climb at a faster rate which slowed the speed down to V2. Once the jet slowed through the no-slat stall speed, the left wing loss of lift started the roll that resulted in the crash. The data was there on the flight data recorder. The first officer had to be flying because the captain's instruments were powered by the No 1 electrical bus which failed when the engine departed. The slat asymmetry warning also failed due to the No 1 bus failure and the first officers stick did not shake because AA opted to not have it installed. If it was, it is possible the FO would have pushed forward to lower the nose and gain speed but we will never know, it all happened so fast. Several years later after an uncontained No 3 engine failure on an Air Florida DC-10, as the jet came to a stop on the runway the right outboard slat fully retracted. Douglas installed some valves in the outboard slat hydraulic line that would trap fluid in the slat actuators and hold the slat position in case of a hydraulic failure. The way the engine departed the AA jet was never postulated based on the design of the engine and pylon attachments which was good until the unauthorized maintenance procedure cracked the aft pylon bulkhead.
I grew up literally across the street from O hare (Manheim rd) was 13 at that time and I remember like it was yesterday sadly . all the ambulances sirens headinig in , then I watched them all going back to their stations quietly . very chilling to this day for me . shed some tears watching this .
