I was working for Continental Airlines Contract Services in the old International Terminal. I remember sitting in an empty gate area reading when I felt the ground get pounded. Then I heard an explosion. A fellow employee walking by asked me,"Did you hear and feel that"? That's when I got up and walked over to the other side of the gate area and saw a plume of fire and smoke 100 feet tall. We were almost a mile away from the jets point of impact. It was a few minutes before anyone of us was sure it was a jet that had collided with the ground. Weather wise it was a glorious day. Sunny,clear and warm. Much like New York on Sept. 11.

--Kurt Gubitz

On the afternoon of May 25, 1979, I was on an airport bus headed from downtown Chicago to O'Hare airport. The traffic along the expressway came to a dead halt. We watched from the bus as dozens of emergency vehicles spead by with sirens blaring and lights flashing, followed by what seemed like every newspaper and television crew in the city. The driver mentioned to someone in the front of the bus that his radio dispatcher said something had crashed on the runway at O'Hare. I thought this was a lousy rumor to be spreading around a bus loaded with people headed to the airport. As traffic began moving again and we approached O'Hare, a pall of black smoke could be seen on the western horizon. When we got to O'Hare I noticed that planes were landing from a direction I'd never seen at O'Hare before and air traffic was very light for a Friday afternoon. It struck me as odd at the time but I still didn't consider that what the bus driver had said was true. I wandered the airport and ended up in the Continental Airlines waiting lounge where maybe 100 people were gathered around a large TV on a pedestal, watching, silent. As I got closer and listened I heard the announcer say that "Chicago now had the dubious honor of being the scene of the nation's worst single plane crash." I asked the guy next to me what had happened and he said "American DC-10. Just over there" pointing out the windows to the west. The crash was the only discussion among traverlers at the airport that evening. As I wandered around waiting for my flight, people on every payphone (no such thing as cell phones then) were talking to their loved-ones about what had happened. Early that evening, my North Central DC-9 lifted off the O'Hare runway heading west and then north and we flew over the smoking remains of the American DC-10 crash. It's as close as I ever want to come to another.

--Bill

I was 8 years old at the time, and lived about 5 miles from O'Hare. I was outside rollerskating with my friend Julie when suddenly we heard the loudest, nastiest thunderclap we've ever heard. We both looked up and couldn't figure it out. How could there be thunder when it was gorgeous out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky? And nasty thunder at that. After dinner, we just sat on her porch staring at each other, unsure how to react to the news that the sound we heard was the sound of nearly 300 people dying. I still hear planes crashing in my nightmares even to this day.

--Sheila Strabley

I was only about 3/4 miles NE of the impact point. I was an engineer at ITT Telecom in Des Plaines. I remenber hearing or "feeling" a "thud", and a few moments later one of the secretaries came running into the office area screaming a plane crashed at Higgins and Mt Prospect Rd (nearest intersection of impact). That afternoon it took me four hours to get home, when normally it took about 40 minutes.

--Alex Fomin

I remember that I came inside, saw the TV, and saw what was going on. I immediately called my Mom to come and look. From Dundee we could see the smoke cloud way off in the distance. My Dad worked for the airline at the time of the incident and my Mom called him right away, but his secretary said that he was unavailable. I remember that my Dad didn't come home for a few days afterward. They were setting up make-shift morgues in the hanger. Another friend of the family worked there as well and I recall her speaking to my Mom privately about body parts, stories of family members that left the airport and watched in horror as the plane went down hoping that was not the plane of a family member, etc. Inside stories were very gruesome. I now work for the airline as well and I hope that I or anyone else will never have to go thru a situation like this.

--AA

We were moving from Mundelein, IL to Fort Wayne, Indiana that day. We saw the plane crash from the highway. I'll never forget the fire and the smoke cloud, I was nine. It being the Midwest plains out there, we could see the smoke cloud for over a hundred miles. Unfortunately, I saw the crash into the Trade Towers on my way to work and it brought back the memories of this flight. Strange how I was witness to both. No, I am absolutely not afraid to fly; human problems caused both. Very, wery sad way to lose loved ones, I guess because the events are so so tragic.

--Anonymous