NBC Network - "The Crash of Flight 191" (Part 2, 1979)

Here's Part 2 of continuing coverage of the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 at O'Hare Field, the worst air disaster in U.S. history; this includes the second half of an NBC News Special Report anchored by Chuck Scarborough, as aired on WMAQ Channel 5. Featuring Jim Ruddle, Jim Tilmon, Carole Simpson. Includes:

The tail end of Jim Ruddle's interview with Jim Tilmon (Ruddle saying, "Back to New York").

Chuck Scarborough recounts numerous design problems and accidents that plagued McDonnell-Douglas' DC-10 over the years, mentioning a November 1973 case of an engine fan assembly disintegrating over Albuquerque, NM, with debris breaking a window and a passenger sucked 39,000 feet (the plane landed safely); the March 1974 disaster outside Paris that killed 346 people (the world's single worst air disaster); a November 1975 case of birds being sucked into one of the DC-10's engines at New York's Kennedy Airport, leading to the plane catching fire (passengers and crew escaped unharmed); a recent (March 1978) of a plane in Los Angeles blowing two tires, shearing its landing gear and catching fire (2 died, 28 were injured); and another from the same day in Honolulu where a flight was aborted due to tires blowing. Pictures of various accidents involving the DC-10 (beginning with the 1974 crash) are shown. Chuck cites FAA statistics showing 15 cases of tire issues on DC-10's.

A report from Washington, DC by Carole Simpson on NTSB "Go Team" and FAA investigators about to leave Washington for Chicago to investigate the crash, to find out what happened, how and why it happened, and how to prevent such a thing from happening in the future. FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond (who was heading the team of investigators) is interviewed; he says he cannot recall any equivalent crash of the past of this magnitude with this type of plane.

Chuck then recalls the worst U.S. air disasters prior to Flight 191, starting with the September 25th 1978 collision of a private Cessna 172 collided with a commercial Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 (Boeing 727) over San Diego, killing 144 people. He then cites the prior worst crash at O'Hare as from December 20th 1972, when a North Central Airlines DC-9, taking off in heavy fog, crashed, killing 9 people; this was 12 days after the December 8th 1972 crash of a United Airlines Boeing 737 with 61 on board, into a row of houses on Chicago's Southwest Side, a mile from Midway Airport (among the victims were a CBS News correspondent, Michele Clark, and the wife of convicted Watergate felon E. Howard Hunt). He also mentions another December 1972 crash of an Eastern Airlines Tri-Star Jetliner over Florida's Everglades (17 miles west of Miami), killing more than half of the 177 people on board (the first fatal accident involving a jumbo jet); a June 1975 crash of an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 from New Orleans as it attempted to land at Kennedy Airport during a thunderstorm, killing 113 and injuring 11 (the worst single-aircraft disaster in U.S. history prior to Flight 191); and an April 1976 crash of an American Airlines jet in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with 37 of the 88 on board being killed (American's first crash in 10 years at that point). He then repeats the March 1978 Los Angeles tire incident and the September 1978 San Diego crash, going into greater detail on the latter, before mentioning the worst air disaster anywhere in the world - the March 1977 crash of two 747's over the runway of Tenerife Airport in the Canary Islands, killing over 570 people. Pertinent film (and some tape) footage of the crashes in question is shown.

Chuck then recaps the news of Federal investigators heading to Chicago to investigate the crash, before mentioning that NBC News will continue to cover the story through the weekend and saying good night.

Flight 191 - (c) National Broadcasting Company, Inc., 1979. All Rights Reserved.

This aired on local Chicago TV on Friday, May 25th 1979 during the 10:41pm to 10:47pm timeframe.

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