Memorial Day: The Tribulations of the DC-10.

I was standing on the ramp just west of Hangar 3 at Palwaukee. The hangar is not there anymore, there is a public viewing parking lot at that spot now.

Ground control came on the radio and said "They've lost a heavy at O'hare." I turned around and looked south and saw a monster mushroom cloud going up - Wow...

In 2007, a Boeing 737-200 operating Nationwide flight 723 out of FACT lost its right hand engine which separated during climb-out, but unlike AA191, the crew regained control and landed safely. An outstanding feat of piloting by Captain Trevor Arnold and 1st Officer Daniel Perry, who was the pilot flying.
See https://aviation-safety.net/asndb/321836 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6kccBc-FBQ

AA 191 was at a speed greater than V2. The procedure at that time for an engine failure was to climb at V2. When the Captain reduced speed to V2 he lost control due to the slats being retracted.

191...heard they put several pilots thru a simulation of the crash... the only crew that "survived" pushed the throttles "balls to the walls" to overcome loss of lift...

I remember it well. At the time, I was based at CVG and lived in Northern Kentucky. On the evening of that crash, a Friday, my girlfriend at the time decided she wanted to go to a Conway Twitty concert with her ex-husband! When she returned, I confronted her in the bathroom and flushed her engagement ring down the toilet in front of her! In regard to the France crash, there's excellent coverage of that in the book "Destination Disaster". I've read it several times. Another incident also related to explosive decompression due to that cargo door design occurred over Lake Ontario on June 12, 1972. The flight crew had little to no control authority over the control surfaces. The PIC used differential thrust to turn around and returned to DTW. He had recently practiced that technique in the sim. That flight was American Airlines flight 96 with the NTSB report: AAR-73-2.

Actually I was on the same flight two days earlier from Chicago to LA for a job interview. Don’t know if it was the same plane, but it makes one think.

There is one more death attributed to AA 191.
The SUprevisor took his own life, knowing that the courts were going to find him guilty.

AA 191 was definitely one of those "I remember what I was doing when I heard about it" moments. Certainly was for me.

I remember the day that American 191 crashed in Chicago. Ten years later it ALMOST became the 2nd most deadly American crash, except the crew of United 232, through some superb airmanship, managed to crash land at Sioux City, Iowa. Out of 296 souls aboard, they managed to have 185 survivors, with only 111 souls not surviving. Both aircraft were DC-10s.

There is a Canadian produced series about mostly airplane disasters called MAYDAY that does a good job explaining this incident and what exactly happened. I suggest that you watch it if you can it streaming somewhere. The book Destination Disaster gives a good story about the Turkish Airlines DC-10 that crashed outside of Paris. The two DC-10 crashes I mention here were caused by different problems.

Had just landed on 04 at ORD, very gusty wind out of the North. He took off on 32 with a pretty good cross wind.

I never had the opportunity to work on one of these planes, but know quite a few who have... It is a lot of airplane any many parts of it were a heard of its time in the term of Technology