It was a normal day at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport - and the regular domestic flight to Los Angeles was ready to take off as usual.
With 258 passengers on board, along with 13 crew, American Airlines Flight 191 couldn’t have asked for better conditions on the sunny May day.
But just seconds after the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10’s wheels left the runway, catastrophe happened.
The left front engine had detached from the left wing, flipped and landed with a crash onto the runway.
As the engine was wrenched away from the plane, it ripped several of the lines of hydraulic fluid that keep the wing’s leading-edge slats on place.
Around three feet of the left wing was also damaged and as the plane began to climb high into the skies, still with full take-off thrust deployed, it rolled horrifyingly.
Pilots lost total control of the huge jet and were unable to do anything to prevent the impending disaster.
The plane had now rolled alarmingly to the left and was partially upside down before plummeting back to earth into a field close to the end of the runway.
All 273 people on board were killed instantly.
The final word to be recorded on the cockpit voice record as pilots heard a loud bang after the engine broke away and thudded down the runway was “damn”.
Two weeks after the crash - still the worst aviation accident in US history - the DC-10-10 was grounded around the world.
The design of the plane itself was later cleared of any blame in causing the tragedy.
Instead, a faulty maintenance procedure during an earlier engine change, was believed to have caused the damage that led to the left front engine coming away from the aircraft.
American Airlines was fined $500,000, which would be the equivalent of $1.4million today.
