| It was a beautiful Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, | | | | wings were vertical. Then it crashed to the earth. A |
| and throngs of happy travelers filled O'Hare | | | | massive explosion erupted, and the fireball flew half a |
| International Airport - the busiest airport in the world. | | | | mile northwest of O'Hare and burst into an abandoned |
| Shortly before 3 pm in the afternoon of Friday May | | | | hangar at Peotone healthcare in old Ravenswood |
| 25, 1979, the passengers of Flight 191 boarded the | | | | Airport. All the crew and passengers of Flight 191 - 271 |
| McDonnell-Douglas DC 10 on their way to Los | | | | people in all - were killed instantly. |
| Angeles. Many of the passengers were local literary | | | | Since that day rumors of ghosts began to circulate. |
| lights bound for the annual American Booksellers | | | | Motorists reported to the Des Plaines Police that they |
| Association convention, and orthopedic doctors | | | | saw bobbing white lights at night at the spot where |
| Chicago south suburbs. Nothing seemed out of the | | | | Flight 191 had gone down. Police thought at first that |
| ordinary: The DC-10 was a top-of-the-line aircraft, and | | | | they were flashlights carried by souvenir hunters, but |
| this particular ship had logged over twenty thousand | | | | patrols sent to investigate never found anyone. |
| trouble free hours since it was built. The crew was | | | | Residents of a mobile home park next to the site of |
| also top notch, including its Captain Walter Lux, who | | | | the crash claimed that they would hear rapping sounds |
| had over twenty thousand hours and had been flying | | | | on their windows and doors; but again police |
| DC-10's for a decade, its first officer James Dillard and | | | | investigators found nothing. The dogs from the trailer |
| its Flight Engineer Alfred Udovich, both of whom had | | | | park barked endlessly at the area where the plane |
| twenty-five thousand flight hours of experience. | | | | had crashed but their masters couldn't find any reason |
| At 3:02 pm the plane began its taxi down the runway | | | | for this behavior. The ghostly manifestations continued |
| for takeoff and all was well until at a point a little over | | | | for months and escalated to a point where doorknobs |
| a mile down the runway the tower controller spotted | | | | were turned and rattled, and footsteps could be heard |
| pieces of the port engine pylon dropping away from | | | | outside the trailers and on their metal steps. Some |
| the plane and a white vapor coming out of this area. A | | | | Peotone, Illinois healthcare residents of the trailer park |
| moment later the plane lifted off, and as it did so the | | | | even reported confronting shadowy figures on their |
| entire port engine and pylon ripped loose, flipped over | | | | doorsteps who would say that they had to find their |
| the wing, and crashed onto the runway. The controller | | | | luggage or hurry to make a connection and then |
| tried to contact the plane, but there was no reply by | | | | vanish into the night. Many residents moved out that |
| the crew. Flight 191 proceeded to climb normally until, | | | | trailer park but when newcomers came in they also |
| when it was about 300 feet off the ground, it began to | | | | began to experience weird occurrences. These |
| bank towards the left. The nose of the plane dipped | | | | happenings continue to the present day. |
| and the aircraft lost height, banking to the left until its | | | | |