Rain of Fire Falling: The crash of American Airlines flight 191

On the 25th of May 1979, America’s deadliest plane crash unfolded in 31 harrowing seconds at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, as an American Airlines DC-10 packed with holiday travelers rolled over and plunged into the ground just moments after takeoff. 273 people perished in an immense ball of fire and a hail of riven debris. Photographs of the plane in flight immediately revealed the proximate cause: the DC-10’s left engine had fallen off the wing during the takeoff roll, an extremely rare and dramatic malfunction. But the full story would prove to be much more complex, as a series of unforeseen mechanical complications, exacerbated by the very design of the airplane, robbed the pilots of the information they needed to regain control of an airliner which, in fact, could have been saved. The story would also be that of an airline which mishandled critical maintenance procedures in order to save time and money, and of a lack of communication that concealed the warnings which could have prevented the crash. But from these manifold failures of both metal and men, hard lessons have been learned — lessons which proved critical for the future safe development of America’s aviation industry. <a href="https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/rain-of-fire-falling-the-crash-of-american-airlines-flight-191-e17ffc5369e5">Read More</a>