All 258 passengers and 13 crew members aboard American Airlines Flight 191 died when the DC-10 plane crashed on May 25, 1979, according to a National Transportation Safety Board accident report. Two men on the ground were also killed.
Those are the statistics, but we wanted to learn more about the people whose lives were lost that day. So we asked family members and friends to share their recollections. What follows below are their answers. For those whose families we haven’t yet heard from, we combed the Chicago Tribune and Newspapers.com archives for details.
A memorial to these victims was dedicated in 2011 at Lake Park in Des Plaines, less than 2 miles east of the crash site.
From Casey Binstadt, daughter:
“He was traveling home from a business meeting in Chicago. It was his daughter’s 2nd birthday and he was flying standby. He left behind a wife, son and daughter, who remained in Los Angeles. While his presence was sorely missed, his personality always shone bright through his sister, Jodie Adams. Jodie, along with Jim’s brother, Tom, mother and father all lived in Springfield, Mo.”
From Alison Minet Adams, wife:
“Jeff and I met at Tufts University in 1969 and were married in 1971. We had 10 sweet years together … it wasn’t enough. He had been in Chicago on business and was flying home to Orange County.”
From Michael Adduci, brother:
“Kathy was supposed to get married and the date was set for June 2 of that year, but it was called off. To take her mind off the wedding, my mom talked her into going to Hawaii with two other friends. They were Gail DeCastro and Rhonda DeYoung, who also perished. We ended up in church on the 2nd of June for Kathy — for her funeral.
She was a sweet and beautiful sister who had many friends. She was studying to be a nurse at South Suburban College at the time of the accident and needed a break from school and the heartbreak of the wedding being called off. I remember she had just bought a new Pontiac Firebird and I went with her to sign the papers and bring it home. She was so proud of it.
The devastation of the accident affected my family way beyond 1979. My mom was in remission from breast cancer and three months after the accident her cancer came back and she passed away in 1981. My father was heartbroken over losing two loved ones and committed suicide in 1997.
What I didn’t realize until the (memorial’s) dedication was there were families there who lost up to five family members at once. Now, that’s devastation, isn’t it?”
The 30-year-old Wisconsin native had been a flight officer for American Airlines, based in Boston, for more than a year. He received his flight training in the U.S. Air Force. Aeschbacher was a passenger aboard Flight 191, traveling to Los Angeles to visit friends over Memorial Day weekend.
Parents Abdullah and Mona along with their children Basil, 8, and Ahamad, 3, all died aboard Flight 191.
The 30-year-old service coordinator was one of seven employees of Pacific Telephone who had been attending classes in Lisle.
Ang was a senior auditor for the Times Mirror Co., then-publisher of the Los Angeles Times, who had just joined the company two weeks prior to the crash.
After visiting friends and family in Michigan City, Ind., Armstrong took a limousine to O’Hare International Airport. She was among the 30 victims whose remains were never identified. These victims’ names became known by a process of elimination and were buried side by side at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Artz, who moved to Illinois in January 1979, was the executive director of the Illinois Association of Park Districts in Springfield. His wife still lived in Southern California and he was traveling back there for a surprise visit. Though he only lived in Illinois a short time, the Illinois Parks & Recreation Association’s lifetime achievement award is named in Artz’s honor.
From Richard Ring, her former boss:
“Sherry was not only a great employee at Abbott Diagnostic Division Reagent Product Line in South Pasadena, Calif., but a positive and wonderful lady. I can only say that it has been over 40 years since we lost her on Flight 191 but she will always be remembered in our hearts. She was returning from a training session at Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago with a co-employee Peter Moon who we also miss dearly.”
The 44-year-old International House of Pancakes franchisee was the 229th victim to be identified by medical investigators. A wife and two sons survived him.
The 40-year-old employee of aerospace firm Hamilton Standard was returning to Southern California from a meeting in Windsor Locks, Conn., with colleagues R. Norman Braine, Richard E. Lent and John Ondreck. He was among the 30 victims whose remains were never identified. These victims’ names became known by a process of elimination and were buried side by side at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
From Michael Bean, son:
“My mother and father had retired to Aiea on Oahu in Hawaii. My mother worked in the officer’s club on the Air Force base there. She had served in the Air Force during the Korean War. My parents loved Hawaii after being stationed there twice.
She was in Vermont to visit my family and myself, but I was not there at the time since I took a job as a roadie for the band Bad Company several weeks earlier.
We didn’t know she was on that flight because she was flying standby and got her seat at the last minute. We had no clue where she was when she didn’t arrive in Honolulu. I was 24 years old at the time.
Years later in Vermont, I became friends with a woman who also was in the rock business. I told her about my mother. To her horror, she told me that she was supposed to be on that flight but missed the connection. To this day, I believe my mother got her seat.”
The 53-year-old was vice president of Weiser Lock Co. in Los Angeles at the time of his death, though he formerly lived in Florida. Survivors include his wife, three daughters and three grandchildren.
The psychotherapist and senior editor of Forum magazine, a journal of human relations headquartered in New York City, was heading to the American Booksellers Association convention in Los Angeles to speak about her upcoming book, “Sex Signs.” Following her death, several of her friends and colleagues got together to finish writing it for her. Bennett also founded and directed Life Crisis Counseling, a Chicago-based clinic.