Friday May 25, 1979, was a pleasant sunny day in Chicago, Illinois. It was the eve of the Memorial Day Weekend and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was even busier than usual.
At the gate, American Airlines flight 191 was preparing to depart to Los Angeles. Flight 191 had been operated by American's DC-10s since they entered service some eight years earlier. The DC-10-10 seated 270 passengers in a mixed class configuration and was very popular with travellers and the company's flight and cabin crew. The aircraft allocated for today's flight was N110AA, delivered to the airline on 02.28.72. It had proven itself an excellent aircraft and had flown nearly 20,000 hours since its delivery.
In command of today's flight was Walter Lux, 53, an extremely experienced pilot who had 22,000 hours to his name and had been flying DC-10s since their introduction to American Airlines. His crew were First Officer James Dillard, 49, who had almost 10,000 hours ,and Flight Engineer Alfred Udovich, 56, who had 15,000 hours. A cabin crew of ten attended to the passengers.
At 2.59pm the DC-10 was cleared to taxi to the holding point for runway 32R. At 3.02pm the DC-10 was cleared for take off and at a weight of 379,000 pounds started its take off run. Everything was normal during its run until, 6000 feet down the runway just before rotation, the port engine (No.1) lost power and pieces of the pylon started to fall away from the aircraft. By then, white vapour began to stream from the mounting, which was the fuel spilling from the broken fuel lines.
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