My First "Remember Where Were You When So-So" Happened Moment

Everyone has a “remember where you when so-so happened moment.” Most of them, if not all, are ones that brought the nation and possibly the world to a halt. The Hindenburg. Pearl Harbor. JFK’s and John Lennon’s assassinations. Challenger. O.J. Simpson’s Bronco chase and not guilty verdict. 9/11.

For me, my first remember where you when moment happened locally on the afternoon of May 25, 1979. I don’t think I’d be far calling the moment Chicago’s 9/11 when American Airlines Flight 191 with 272 passengers and crew aboard crashed into a nearby hangar and trailer park 31 seconds after takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport killing all aboard and two more on the ground after its left engine separated as the aircraft taxied down runway 32R.

Unlike the passengers and crew aboard the doomed DC-10 bound for Los Angeles who no doubt had holiday plans that three-day weekend in what officially marked the start of summer, I had nothing on my agenda. My being only nine-years-old then I am not even sure what an agenda was. What I did know upon coming home from school at 2:30 that Friday afternoon is that I didn’t expect to be glued to WLS-TV channel 7 news.

Living in Chicago at the time, Channel 7 news was my preferred station (in Dallas, Texas where I live now, the local station is WFAA on channel 8). I watched veteran news anchors Fahey Flynn (with his signature bowtie) and Joel Daly anchor the special report back and forth from the news desk to the live coverage from eyewitness reporters on the scene at the northwest corner of Lee and Touhy Avenues near the airport.

The first images I saw on TV were of billowing black and white smoke as first responders descended within minutes of the crash only to be told within almost a half hour of their immediate arrival their rescue services would not be needed.

The scenes seen live of the smoldering remains of what was a DC-10 and then the next morning on the front covers of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times that showed a front landing gear, the tail engine and a piece of fuselage that landed on a trailer home, let alone the left engine lying on runway 32R were not what haunted me. Not even the photos of first responders placing numbered flags at the crash site marking fatalities who would soon be moved to a makeshift hangar to serve as a morgue near the airport.

The picture, taken by pilot Michael Laughlin, was what would haunt me. The shot would join other infamous front-page photos of troubled jetliners that got readers attention seconds before disaster struck that would of course include 9/11, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 in September 1978 and Air France Flight 4590 in July 2000.

My morbid interest in the nation’s worst air disaster would not come up again until 15 years later on Halloween night October 31, 1994. For some reason early that day my mind was on American Airlines Flight 191. I couldn’t put my finger on it as to why other than the fact my parents were coming back from Chicago that night after visiting my grandparents in the “Windy City.”

While I didn’t think anything tragic was going to happen to my parents aboard the flight coming home, I still had this ominous feeling something else was going to happen that night.

When I came home on a lunch break from work, mom told me that an American Eagle twin engine Aerospatiale ATR-72 carrying 68 passengers and crew went down in a field in Roselawn, Indiana killing all aboard.

This wasn’t the first time I found the events surrounding the May 25 jet crash to be more than just a series of coincidences.

Wreckage of Delta Airlines Flight 191 - 8/2/85

I’d have thought nothing when DFW like Chicago experienced its own 9/11 moment six years after the O’Hare jet crash the early evening of August 2, 1985. During Friday evening rush-hour traffic, a Delta Airlines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar arriving from Fort Lauderdale, Florida crashed in a freak thunderstorm as it attempted to land at Dallas/ Fort Worth International Airport killing 137 passengers and crew and one on the ground. Of the 163 aboard, 24 survivors, all of whom sat in the charred tail section which was intact upon impact survived.

The number assigned to the ill-fated L-1011 was “191.”

Mention Lee and Touhy Avenues let alone May 25, 1979, to someone and chances are they will have no idea why you’d even mention the place or date. They wouldn’t understand the significance.

Lee and Touhy Avenues, let alone O’Hare airport are not Pearl Harbor, Dealey Plaza, Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. Lightbulbs don’t immediately turn on when one mentions May 25, 1979, the way one knows what happened and where they were on Dec. 7, 1941, Nov. 22, 1963, or 9/11.

The ones who know the significance of Lee and Touhy Avenues if not May 25, 1979, are those like me who lived in Chicago at the time and recall the eyewitness news reports, the front pages of the city’s newspapers in the days to follow, and/or knew someone aboard the flight.

For a lot of people Memorial Day weekend is nothing more than another holiday to mark the beginning of summer vacation – a chance to hold family barbecues.

Memorial Day is not, however, like July 4 or Labor Day. The holiday has always been a time to honor the men and women who died during their service in the U.S. military. The day has never been a time for celebrations.

For the families of the 274 lost 45 years ago that sunny Chicago afternoon, the three-day weekend is as much a time for mourning and reflection as it is for the ones who died in the line of duty.

©5/29/24