It was an ordinary day at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport – and the routine domestic flight to Los Angeles was prepared to depart as scheduled.
Carrying 258 passengers alongside 13 crew members, American Airlines Flight 191 enjoyed perfect conditions on the bright May afternoon.
However, mere moments after the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10’s landing gear lifted off the tarmac, disaster struck. It comes after we revealed a pilot’s chilling last words as he let his children fly the plane before it crashed.
The port engine had torn away from the left wing, somersaulted through the air and slammed onto the runway with devastating force.
As the powerplant was violently ripped from the aircraft, it severed multiple hydraulic lines that maintained the wing’s leading-edge slats in position, reports the Mirror.
Approximately three feet of the left wing sustained severe damage and as the aircraft began its ascent into the sky, still operating at maximum takeoff power, it banked terrifyingly.
The flight crew lost complete command of the massive airliner and were powerless to stop the looming catastrophe.
The aircraft had now tilted dangerously to the left and was partly inverted before crashing back down to earth in a field near the runway’s end.
All 273 souls aboard perished immediately.
The last utterance captured on the cockpit voice recorder as pilots heard a thunderous explosion following the engine separation and impact was “damn”.
Two weeks following the disaster – remains America’s deadliest aviation tragedy – the DC-10-10 fleet was banned worldwide.
