The Curse of Flight 191

When it comes to supposed ghost stories in the Dallas area, I can tell you that a friend of mine and I ate at Snuffers restaurant located on Greenville Ave. one busy Friday night. I assure you I did not see or feel any cold presence of a spirit as opposed to what the local newspapers and websites about the supernatural have said over the years. I do not see how one could when the area of the restaurant we sat in was so loud and full of patrons.

I have also never encountered any strange occurrences while dining at the Trail Dust Steakhouse in Mesquite. Of course, I have only eaten on the first floor. I have never been on the second floor, which is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of John Brown; a construction worker who fell to his death while building a railing over the left side of the dance floor, according to www.theshadowlands.net/places/texas.htm.

The same can be said for the restless spirit that supposedly resides at Eastfield Community College in Mesquite. Legend has it that a spirit believed to be a member of the Motley family who are buried in a cemetery plot near the college, watches play rehearsals in the Performance Hall ever since the campus was built in the 1970s. Then again, I have never met anyone who has been in a play production who can verify that such events have happened.

There is one story I can tell you though that happened to me back on Halloween night in 1994. I wouldn’t exactly call it a ghost story, but it is an eerie coincidence nonetheless.

But for me to tell you the outcome, I’ll have to take you back to a sunny mid-Friday afternoon in what was the start of the holiday Memorial Day weekend in Chicago 24 years ago. The date was May 25, 1979.



Shortly after 3 p.m., an American Airlines DC-10, Flight 191, jet fuel spewing from its wounded left wing where an engine used to be, crashed into a trailer park and exploded minutes after takeoff from O’Hare Airport, killing all 271 passengers and crew and two more on the ground.

Six years later on Aug. 2, 1985, a Delta Airlines L-1011 crashed at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport as it attempted to land in a heavy thunderstorm. The accident was the result of wind shear.

More than a handful of passengers, all of whom were sitting in the tail section survived, however, 137 perished including one on the ground.

In a rather ironic twist not connected to the American Airlines disaster, 13 years before the Delta crash, pilots aboard Eastern Airlines L-1011’s recalled one particular incident where the ghost of a dead pilot who worked for Eastern and perished in the company’s L-1011 crash in the Florida Everglades Dec. 29, 1972, appeared before a flight crew with the words, “There will never be another crash on an L-1011. We will not let that happen.”

The incident was reported in author John G. Fuller’s book, “The Ghost of Flight 401.” If such an event did occur and the spirits of the dead pilots were watching over the safety and maintenance of Eastern’s L-1011’s, was the ghostly promise meant for just that airline only?

Both American and Delta jets had the flight number “191.” Is it possible that when a flight number is given to a certain plane, if it happens to be one from a jetliner that crashed years before, does that mean the aircraft is cursed?



It wasn’t the crash at DFW Airport I was thinking about that Halloween weekend in October 1994, however. For some reason, my mind was on the tragic events in Chicago years before. The only reason, to this day as to why I couldn’t get the event out of my head was because one, my parents had flown to “The Windy City” that weekend to see relatives.

Two, I had this unsettling feeling something wrong was going to happen to a plane between the time my parents were away and the time they would be flying home which was Monday, Oct. 31. Yet at the same time, I didn’t think anything was going to happen to the aircraft my parents were on.

That night, when I came home on my break from work, my mom told me they learned while in Chicago that an American Eagle twin engine propeller Aerospatiale ATR-72, carrying 68 passengers and crew, went down in a field in Roselawn, Indiana killing all aboard.



The plane was in a holding pattern waiting for clearance to land at O’Hare when ice developed on its wings causing the aircraft to go into a spin.

My parents and I have flown to Chicago lots of times since ’94. This was the only time, though, that I had a feeling something ominous was going to happen. To this day, there have been no unexplained phenomena in the fields near DFW Airport and in Roselawn, Indiana where the Delta Airlines L-1011 and American Eagle planes crashed. Reports of ghostly apparitions appearing on various Eastern L-1011s ceased within a few years of the Dec. 29, 1972 crash and the airline ceased operations in 1991.

The same cannot be said for the trailer park near O’Hare Airport in what was one of the deadliest air disasters in United States history until the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Since the ’79 crash, residents have reported hearing moans and cries and seeing bobbing white lights while dogs bark uncontrollably for no apparent reason in the direction where the DC-10 went down according to the website, www.prairieghosts.com/flight.html.

Some have reportedly found apparitions standing at their doorsteps saying they “need to get their luggage” and “make a connection” only to disappear seconds later. A man walking his dog near the crash site ran into another person who smelled of jet fuel with smoke billowing from his clothes. The person told the resident he had to make an emergency phone call only to vanish.

The most repeated incident the website says continues to happen is near the departure gate at O’Hare Airport used by Flight 191. Travelers have reported seeing a man, whose business attire seems out of date, make a call from a telephone booth and then vanish into thin air.

The stories have gotten enough attention that ghosthunter Richard T. Crowe includes the crash site on his four-hour haunted bus route of the Windy City every year, which is profiled on the website at http://www.ghosttours.com/.

Believe it or not.

©10/29/03

My Personal Worst Films: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre «
R, 98m. 2003

Cast & Credits: Jessica Biel (Erin), Jonathan Tucker (Morgan), Erica Leerhsen (Pepper), Mike Vogel (Andy), Eric Balfour (Kemper), Andrew Bryniarski (Thomas Hewitt - Leatherface), R. Lee Ermey (Sheriff Hoyt). Screenplay by Scott Kosar based on the 1974 screenplay by Kim Henkel and Toby Hooper. Directed by Marcus Nispel.

The best advice studios should heed is to stop remaking the great movies and concentrate more on remaking the bad ones. What I liked most about director Gus Van Sant's remake of "Psycho" (1998), for example, was that in shooting the film exactly the way Alfred Hitchcock shot it, he proved that the classics should be best left alone.

The original "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974), directed by Tobe Hooper, who years later would go on to make the supernatural ghost story, "Poltergeist" (1982), was by no means a classic. I thought it was perverted garbage, but it was perverted garbage made on a cheap stylish independent level that could well be the stuff nightmares are made of. If the film was shocking when it came out, it was because like the foul mouthed, vomit-spewing obscenities uttered by the demon possessed Megan played by Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" (1973), no one had ever seen horror like this on the big screen before.

The most haunting shot in Hooper’s film, if I remember correctly as it's been years since I have seen it, is the way it ended showing the director’s certifiably psychotic creation, Leatherface, running around in a Texas field brandishing his buzzing chainsaw like a wild man. By comparison, the most frightening image in this remake is the last shot of Leatherface being captured on a grainy black and white crime film.

Movie remakes are, after all, curiosity pieces; a chance to see another filmmaker's take on what was already, if it wasn't one of the greatest movies of all time which "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is not, it was at least the most chilling. Curiosity is the only reason why this remake grossed close to $30 million opening weekend, other than a good marketing campaign.

I went into this updated version produced by director Michael Bay ("Pearl Harbor" - 2001) stupidly thinking this might be an even better improvement upon the original. It took less than 10 minutes to realize how wrong I was. If curiosity does indeed kill cats, then chances are I'm probably "already dead" like the grungy, wheelchair bound old man says to one of the victims who has trespassed on his grounds.

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake is completely devoid of any scares, suspense or vivid horrific imagination. Like the original, the remake is a nightmare but it's a nightmare of our own choosing, paying to sit through this formulaic piece of celluloid trash. It's a joyless, slow moving, masochistically twisted geek show that might as well have been shot as a snuff film since all we are really watching for more than 90 minutes is seeing five young people terrorized. Four of whom are hacked to death by either the villain's chainsaw, machete or hung up on meat hooks in a slimy, wet underground dungeon filled with preserved body parts in jars. By the time the film was over, I felt like I needed a bath.

Jessica Biel is the fifth person, not to mention the heroine who does everything she can to keep from being sawed up by a demented, disfigured being called Leatherface whose visible trademark, other than the skin sewn face he wears from his victims, is wielding a chainsaw. Watching it, I almost wished the Biel character hadn't escaped. This way, we would have been spared the disturbing tale begun by the narrator (John Larroquette) who also narrated Hooper's original film telling us how the story we are about to see is true (but really isn't).

The picture has no shred of originality unless you count the scene where a hitchhiker, who Biel and her pot smoking entourage picked up, blows her brains out creating a blood-stained hole in the back window of their van. It's the way the scene is shot as the camera focuses on the shock of the five travelers and then moves backward taking the audience through the woman's bullet ridden skull that soon takes us outside the vehicle. I'll give the filmmakers this much. I have never seen a scene like that done before except when the characters on "CSI: Miami" (2002) conduct autopsies.

If there is any real difference between this new version and its predecessor, it is that this one was likely made on a larger budget. It features two known stars (Biel from television's "7th Heaven" - 1996) and R. Lee Ermey, best known as the sadistic drill sergeant from "Full Metal Jacket" (1987) as a deranged toothless Texas sheriff. For me to say that the best shots in the movie are of how ominous and isolated Leatherface's old run down, two-story farmhouse looks at night when surrounded by fog would be a waste of newsprint.

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is not a tribute to the original nor is it an improvement. It's as much a waste of a movie-goers time as it is a waste of my time in writing a review of it. I can think of no real rhyme or reason as to why anyone would recommend it except maybe they're as sick as the murderer is in this movie. The film was inspired supposedly by the true story of Ed Gein, a serial killer who back in the late 1950s butchered up several people including the mother of a deputy in Wisconsin. He was also the inspiration for Wild Bill; the vile transvestite cross-dressing villain Jodie Foster's novice FBI agent Clarice Starling went after in "Silence of the Lambs" (1991).

I can think of a better horror/suspense film to see that was loosely inspired by Gein’s murder spree which is "Psycho" (1960). It is the one black and white suspense thriller that to this day still spooks actress Janet Leigh every time she steps in the shower.

©10/20/03

Limbaugh’s supposed racist remarks blown out of proportion by liberal news media

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s controversial and alleged racist comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb on ESPN’s pre-game show, “Sunday NFL Countdown”, Sept. 28, served yet another reminder of how the liberal news media takes a celebrity’s off-the-wall comment and blows it out of proportion.

“I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL,” Limbaugh said on the show. “The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”

I see no racist undertones in that remark.

If Rush Limbaugh is a bigot, then actor/director Mel Gibson is truly anti-Semitic and blames the Jews for putting Christ to death and wants to prove this with his upcoming movie, “The Passion of the Christ” (2004).

If the volatile talk show host’s statement about McNabb was a race issue, why didn’t former Dallas Cowboys’ player Michael Irvin and Tom Jackson, both of whom are African American and were also panelists on the show, refute Limbaugh’s comments at once instead of talking about it days later?

“I’m not pointing at anyone, but someone should have said it,” McNabb was quoted saying according to an Oct. 1, 2003 article on SI.com (Sports Illustrated). “I wouldn’t have cared if it was the cameraman.”

I find it rather ironic that the only ones who did in fact make a big stink out of all this was only liberals eager to get their name in the news. Those include Democratic presidential candidates Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, and Al Sharpton as well as the NAACP who called Limbaugh’s remarks “bigoted and ignorant.”

The fact I heard no conservatives speak for or against what Limbaugh said, like President Bush, or such African Americans as Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell to name a few, proves once again how much the liberal news media makes a big deal out of nothing.

“This thing is alive and kicking today because the Philadelphia sports media, the newspapers, decided to kick it up,” Limbaugh said on his website, www.rushlimbaugh.com on Oct. 1, 2003. “You know, this is such a mountain out of a molehill. There’s no racism here. There’s no racist intent, comment, whatsoever.”

Limbaugh said on his website that he was only giving his opinion from his standpoint as a football fan.

“I, as a fan, don’t think he’s (McNabb) as good as others have made him out to be. Not that he’s a bad quarterback, not that he shouldn’t be there, but that he’s just not as good as everybody says.”

What’s wrong with that?

To quote Limbaugh from his website, “Everybody disagrees everybody when it comes to opinions expressed about practically everything, including sports.”

The face is executives at ESPN knew full well about Limbaugh’s controversial nature prior to bringing him on the show. His comments have gained national attention before. Why should he change his ways just because he is now on cable television?

“I figured if I am going to this (“Sunday NFL Countdown”), I should be who I am,” Limbaugh said according to an Oct. 2, 2003 article by Jason Straziuso of the Associated Press.

I would not have expected anything less from Limbaugh.

I have absolutely zero interest in sports. If Limbaugh, however, had been chosen a few years ago by ABC to co-anchor “Monday Night Football,” I would have been in front of the television every week. Not to watch the game, mind you. But so, I can hear what he has to say about the plays that are called.

The guy is entertaining to listen to which is why I often tune in to his radio show during the week, even if I don’t always agree with him.

ESPN spokesman Dave Nagle said in an Oct. 1, 2003 article on SI.com that the ratings for “Sunday NFL Countdown” were up ten percent overall since Limbaugh joined the show.

The Sept. 28 broadcast drew its biggest audience since November 1996.

Just imagine what those numbers would have bene for this past Sunday’s program if Limbaugh did not, or if the Mickey Mouse owned sports network had not suggested, or should I say urged him to resign? I have no idea as to where that ten percent audience share is now.

What I will say is because of Limbaugh’s sudden and unexpectedly speedy departure from the show on Oct. 2, the folks at Sunday NFL Countdown have lost one prospective viewer who would have tuned in.

That person is me.

©10/15/03

Gibson's “Passion” whips up needless controversy

I doubt most of you have heard of the three-hour biblical epic, “The Gospel of John”, which as of this writing, opened in theaters in limited release Sept. 26.

Other than actor Christopher Plummer who narrates the film, “The Gospel of John” features no known Hollywood stars and covers the life of Christ from his birth to the resurrection, all based of course on one of the four gospels, which this film is named after.

“The Gospel of John” is not receiving any harsh criticism from Jewish groups who are concerned the independent production is going to spur anti-Semitism.

If only Academy Award winning actor/director Mel Gibson were so lucky.

I am willing to bet by now, some, if not all of you have heard of “The Passion of the Christ”, Gibson's upcoming movie about the Son of God. The picture is drawing as much negative criticism from groups like the Anti-Defamation League as it is getting endorsements from Vatican officials and even the president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Like “The Gospel of John”, “The Passion of the Christ” features a cast of unknowns, except for two stars you may have heard of. Jim Caviezel, who starred in the World War II film, The Thin Red Line (1998), plays Jesus and Monica Bellucci, who was most recently seen in “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003), portrays Mary Magdelene.

Gibson's version, which has the characters speaking in Latin and Aramaic tongues, will cover the last 12 hours of Christ's life that include, now that the trailer is reportedly in theaters and on the Internet, graphic scenes of his crucifixion.



"This film is for everyone. For believers and nonbelievers, Jesus Christ is undoubtedly one of the most important historical figures of all time," Gibson is quoted saying on www.passion-movie.com, a website promoting the film. "Name one person who has had a greater impact on the course of history."

Those last 12 hours, however, are what has groups like Abraham Foxman, executive director for the Anti-Defamation League concerned about the picture's material, according to an Aug. 14, 2003 article on CNN.

"We were troubled ... that it portrayed the Jews, the Jewish community, in a manner that we have experienced historically," Foxman told CNN in the article. "Seeing passion plays used to incite not only a passion of love in terms of Christianity, but at the same time, to instill and incite a hatred of the Jews because of deicide"

"There's so much violence that was part of the script ... there was a fixation on the suffering, the torture, the brutality done to Jesus," said Sister Mary C. Boys of the Union Theological Seminary, according to the same column and yet another religious official opposed to the film.

"Mel abhors anti-Semitism.," said Paul Lauer, spokesman for Gibson's Icon Productions who is also quoted on www.passion-movie.com. "In no way does his faith endorse hatred or bigotry or anti-Semitism or blame the Jews for the death of Christ."

He isn't the only one who agrees.

"The contention that the film 'will spur anti-Semitic fervor' is nonsense," said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America according to a Sept. 3, 2003 article on newsmax.com. "You can quote me - Mel Gibson's 'The Passion' is not anti-Semitic. I did not see any anti-Semitism in it."

The same goes for some Vatican officials.

"Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth by putting an entire race in a bad light," said Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos who was quoted in a Sept. 19, 2003 article by the Associated Press. "This film does nothing of the kind."

According to the column, Hoyos, who saw an unfinished version of the film added he "felt moments of deep spiritual intimacy with Jesus Christ."

I will not dispute there are people out there who could spur anti-Semitic viewpoints, or any kind of negative stereotype for that matter towards one race. The aftermath immediately following the 9/11 attacks demonstrated that fully with the murders of convenience store clerks killed solely based on their nationality and reports of religious mosques being vandalized.

Those acts, however, were committed by sick twisted individuals who just wanted to use a national tragedy as a reason to strike back against those who had nothing to do with what happened, much less agree with the terrorists’ beliefs. Just because one or a few people act that way, doesn't mean an entire race endorses it.

Watching such biblical movies about the life of Christ like “Jesus of Nazareth” (1977), “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965) and “King of Kings: (1961) when I was a kid, I saw those films as educational entertainment. Not once did it enter my mind that it was the Jews who murdered Christ. The way I saw it, everyone was responsible, and it wasn't just one race.

The fact is, when it comes to thinking a movie will incite hatred against one group of people is downright ludicrous.

When “Schindler's List” (1993) came out years ago, did the Germans speak out about how director Steven Spielberg portrayed them in the film? If there was, I didn't hear about it.

Did anyone of Japanese descent speak out against Pearl Harbor when it came out the summer of 2001? Honestly when it comes to history, the only thing filmmakers Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay got right was the vivid attack itself.

Spike Lee's “Malcolm X” (1992) opens with the infamous Rodney King video with the voice of the Muslim leader inciting war against the white race. Most of the people who sat in that audience when I saw it were African American and I assure you, when the film ended, no one got up and started chanting "Death to whites!"

In less than three months, “The Alamo” will be released in theaters. Most everyone familiar with Texas history knows how the story ends. I haven't heard any Hispanic groups voice concerns over how they will be depicted in the film.

“The Passion of the Christ” is not just a movie, but an artist's viewpoint of how events in the Bible occurred, the way Martin Scorsese's 1988 film, “The Last Temptation of Christ”, tackled the notion of Jesus as a flawed human being, even if it wasn't necessarily based on the Gospels.

I won't deny I would much rather see a film about Jesus Christ the way “The Gospel of John” was done, or for that matter, see liberal Hollywood make a $50 million plus production with a great number of highly paid stars attached to it.

I am not so sure where the entertainment value is when an entire movie is devoted to covering Jesus' last hours watching someone being horrifically tortured and executed on the cross when Gibson’s “Passion” opens in theaters next spring.

According to the Aug. 14, 2003 article on CNN, Gibson said his film is meant "to inspire, not offend" and wants "to create a lasting work of art and engender serious thought among audiences of diverse faith backgrounds (or none) who have varying familiarity with this story."

Perhaps a movie graphically showing what Christ went through for us will do some good. Maybe it will make people stop and think about how they've been living their lives.

The only time I hear of individuals making a life change is after they see something tragic on the news. Or if something bad happens to them and even then, that life changing attitude lasts half as long, if that much, as it takes to get over the death of a loved one.

©10/1/03