United Airlines Flight 553 was a Boeing 737-222 that crashed on approach to Chicago Midway International Airport at 2:28 p.m. CST, on December 8, 1972. After the crew was told to go around and abort their first landing attempt on runway 31L at Midway Airport, the aircraft struck trees and then roofs along W. 71st Street before crashing into a house at 3722 W. 70th Place. A total of 45 people were killed in the accident, 43 of them on the plane.
The three-man flight crew died along with 40 of the 55 passengers. The crash destroyed five houses and damaged three others, killing two people on the ground.
Among the passengers killed were Illinois Congressman George W. Collins and Dorothy Hunt, the wife of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt. Also killed were Michele Clark, a correspondent for CBS News, and Dr. Alex E. Krill, a noted ophthalmologist from the University of Chicago. Clark was one of the first female African-American network correspondents.
This crash was the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 737, which entered airline service in February 1968.
Read more about United Airlines Flight 553: Flight, Crash, Investigation, Conspiracy Theories
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