Death at Midway

Because Chicago's Midway Airport sits smack in the middle of the city's southwest side, the residents of the neat one-story bungalows that crowd the area long ago learned how to read modulations in the engine noises of approaching aircraft. One afternoon last week, as they waited for their children to return home from school, the largely Polish, Lithuanian and Italian inhabitants of the Chicago Lawn area heard a sound they instantly mistrusted. Recalled Mrs. Pat Kjos: "I was in the basement, and I heard a plane go over. I just knew it was in trouble. It was much too loud. Then all of a sudden the whole house shook, and the electricity went. When I came up, I looked across the street and just saw black smoke."

Coming in to its first approach through fog, a United Air Lines two-engine Boeing 737, en route from Washington, D.C., to Omaha, suddenly revved its engines, tilted its nose high, then struck seven houses and crashed a mile and a half short of Midway. Miraculously, the plane apparently killed only two of the residents, and missed a grammar school by one block. But 43 of the 61 people aboard the plane died, including all three members of the cockpit crew. It was the worst domestic airline crash in 1972. Among the victims were Congressman George Washington Collins, 47, a black who won a November victory in Chicago's racially mixed Seventh District, and Michele Clark, 29, a Washington-based CBS newscaster.

Also killed was Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, wife of a former White House consultant indicted in the bugging of the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Investigators found a purse containing $10,000 in $100 bills in the wreckage and were checking reports that she had been carrying the cash.

Grim holiday reminders lay all about the smoldering site. Before coming to a halt, the plane had caromed into a vacant lot full of Christmas trees and decorations, scattering them in every direction. When bathed in the glare of the rescue searchlights, the huge upright red, white and blue tail section loomed above the disaster site like an eerie tombstone. One resident, Helen Pristave, had been in her kitchen baking holiday cookies when she heard the crash; Congressman Collins was on his way back to Chicago to coordinate a Christmas party for 10,000 children.

The cause of the disaster would probably not be known for weeks or months. One of the mysteries that remained was how 18 people survived the crash, some with no more than sprains or lacerations. Of the three stewardesses aboard, two who were sitting in the rear jump seats escaped without serious injury, but the one seated in the front was gravely injured. Apparently those toward the back had been protected because the aft section of the plane had held together. One American Airlines pilot on the scene commented, "This is more steel left intact than I've seen at a crash scene." Already slowed for its approach, the plane may have hit the ground at a relatively flat angle.

Understandably, the crash spurred the residents of Chicago Lawn to new action to get Midway closed down. Once the world's busiest airport, Midway has only seen token use in the years since 1962, when O'Hare International Airport was opened. But O'Hare itself has become so crowded that just last month city officials won reluctant agreement from the airlines to shift more of Chicago's air-traffic load back to Midway. With houses nestled right up against its perimeter fences, Midway is considered one of the most potentially dangerous airports in the nation. When Mayor Richard Daley arrived at the site more than four hours after the crash, one irate resident grabbed his arm and implored, "Get this damned airport out of here and put it in the lake where it belongs."

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