Reilly's Ramblings

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A United Airlines jet crashed while approaching Chicago’s Second City Airport Friday afternoon with 61 persons aboard. Most of the passengers on the plane were killed when the plane crashed through homes in the south side of the city in a residential district.

The National Transportation Safety Board in Washington immediately dispatched an investigative team to Chicago. Several board officials were already in Chicago conducting hearings into the Oct. 20 commuter train crash that claim the lives of 45 people last month. An official was quoted as saying, “We’ll look into this thoroughly.”

One eyewitness said about the crash: “I saw the plane coming lower and lower. I couldn’t believe it. I thought surely it would go back up in the air. But it kept coming down. I knew it would never make it to the airport. I was scared.”

The plane’s final destination was Omaha, NE.

A United spokesman said, “The plane, Flight 553, was due at Midway at 2:30 p.m. CST. The plane was approaching the airport with a 500-foot ceiling and a one-mile visibility.”

One of the survivors, Marvin Anderson, 43, of Omaha, said, “The last words the pilot said to us were, ‘We are at 4,000 feet and everything is going well.’ I knew something was wrong a few seconds later because he began to rev the engines.”

Curtis Vokamer, Deputy Fire Marshall, said his crew found most of the 55 passengers dead in the debris of the Boeing 737. Vokamer said, “If hell as an address, this is the lace.”

The Cook County Coroner reported 42 bodies have been found. One of the victims identified was Rep. George W. Collins, D-Ill., who was returning from Washington to “organize a children’s Christmas party.”

Holy Cross Hospital reported 16 persons, including the plane’s three flight attendants, were admitted with injuries.

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Four students from Armstrong Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida were stuck in the water overnight after the boat sprang a leak and capsized. One of the students, Christy Wapniarski, was attacked by a shark while heading back to Ormond Beach.

The students were not wearing life jackets and the current was strong during the night. One of the students, Randy Cohen, tried to save Wapniarski and bring her back to the beach.

She died from her injuries and Cohen was still going to bring her back. The other two students, Daniel Perrin and Tammy Ennis, told Cohen to let her body float away.

It took six more hours for the surviving three students to reach shore. The surviving students were examined at Halifax Hospital, Daytona Beach. Cohen is still at Halifax while Perrin and Ennis have been released.