CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Fifty years ago Thursday, a plane crashed on the Southwest Side as it headed toward Midway Airport. Forty-three people on the plane and two people on the ground were killed in the crash.
Chicago Fire Department spokesperson Larry Langford was a 21-year-old radio reporter at the time and remembered it being eerily quiet when he arrived on the scene of where the Boeing 737 crashed into several homes along 70th Place and Lawndale Avenue.
“Well, I parked a couple blocks away and literally just walked down some alleys and got closer than I probably was supposed to get,” Langford said. “When you don’t have camera equipment with you, they don’t think you’re the press.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was pilot error that caused the crash of United Airlines Flight 553.
“I remember a carload of people coming over from Holy Cross Hospital to see what they could do,” Langford said. “At that time, there was nothing more they could do. A car full of people came over, they were escorted in — doctors and nurses.”
Flight 553 had been coming in from Washington, D.C. Among those who died in the crash were Congressman George Collins, CBS News Correspondent Michelle Clark, and Dorothy Hunt, the wife of Watergate conspirator Howard Hunt.
Dorothy Hunt had been carrying $10,000 in $100 bills at the time, which triggered a host of conspiracy theories.
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