30 years later, no memorial marker for Flight 191

Thirty years ago this weekend, American Airlines Flight 191 crashed on takeoff from O'Hare International Airport in a field in an unincorporated area between Des Plaines and Elk Grove Village. The crash killed all 271 onboard and another two people on the ground.

Unlike the 25th anniversary five years ago, there will be no formal memorial ceremony commemorating the loss of life. Instead, Sunday's 11 a.m. airport Mass, conducted by the Rev. Michael Zaniolo, administrator and Catholic chaplain for the O'Hare Chapel, will be done in honor of the victims of Flight 191.

Yet the surviving family members agree that the 273 people who died deserve lasting recognition in the form of a memorial plaque or some other permanent marker.

"I think that would be great," said Joy Holmes, daughter of Steven and Susan Lang of Woodstock, who were on board the plane. "I think it's a shame" nothing has been done before, she said.

That's a product of the era when the accident took place, however, when airlines were less accommodating and memorials less common, even for some of the worst disasters.

"It was the worst air disaster, but at the time this flight took place, airlines offered no support groups," said Melody Smith of Arlington Heights, whose parents, Bill and Corrinne Borchers of Chicago, died in the crash. "The airlines did not want to get involved."

A 1996 federal law mandated that in the event of a lethal crash, the airline must pay for funerals, organize a memorial service or permanent marker, and escort family members to the site.

That never applied to Flight 191.

"There was never, ever anything done to commiserate and for us to try to get together," Smith said.

Smith and her sister, Kim Jockl of Chicago, were the ones who organized the 25th-anniversary ceremony, in which about 100 surviving family members and friends attended a memorial Mass in the chapel at O'Hare. They then took a bus to the crash site, now fenced off under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

The sisters spent two years organizing the event.

"It was a monumental job," Smith said, "because there was never an accurate (passenger) list, if you can believe that."

They worked from a list obtained through back channels at the airline by Michael Lux, son of the plane's pilot, Capt. Walter Lux.

Even at that, it was sometimes impossible "to find relatives of people who were dead" and had been for 25 years, Jockl said.

Holmes was one of those they were unable to find, as she'd been raised along with her brother, Bryson, by an aunt and uncle in Massachusetts and had gone on to resettle in the Los Angeles area. Oddly enough, she was flying through O'Hare on the way to Massachusetts the day after the 25th anniversary when she found out about the memorial event.

"I knew there was no way they could have found us," she said at the time, while praising Smith and Jockl for organizing the ceremony. "It's comforting to know you're not alone on May 25."

Holmes will be in Chicago this weekend with her husband and baby daughter, and they plan to meet Smith, Jockl and any others at the Sunday Mass at O'Hare, but nothing more formal is being organized.

"We have no plans," said an American Airlines spokeswoman, who also could not say why there's no memorial marker.

Flight 191 crashed midafternoon on the Friday before Memorial Day in 1979 when the engine fell off the left wing, in the process tearing a hole that severed the wing's hydraulics and key electrical and warning systems to the cockpit. The DC-10 reached an altitude of 325 feet before rolling left and crashing less than a mile from the runway.

The Borcherses were on their way to a Hawaiian vacation when the plane went down. The Langs, like so many others on the flight, were headed to the American Booksellers Convention in Los Angeles. Steven Lang was general manager of A.B. Morse Barrington Press and was credited with turning it "from a gardening catalog to a national book company," in the words of a press spokesman after the crash.

The most famous people killed on Flight 191 - Playboy magazine Fiction Editor Vicki Haider and Managing Editor Sheldon Wax and his wife, author Judith Wax - were also going to the convention.

The surviving family members agree on the need for some sort of memorial marker.

"Absolutely," Jockl said. "There should be recognition that so many people lost their lives in that one spot."

The question is where.

"The problem is, for the airport to put in a memorial to a plane that crashed, it's not something they really want to have recognized," Smith said.

There's been talk of putting it in the airport chapel, but the chapel might be moved to the other side of the security clearance, making it impossible for anyone but travelers to visit. The same basic issue applies to the crash site.

"What good is it if it's out on that field?" Smith said. "Nobody could ever go out there."

Jockl added that plans are for that field to eventually serve as a retention pond for the runoff from the runway expansion.

Holmes said there is a plaque at Los Angeles International Airport for the passengers who never arrived there. And in the years immediately after the crash, Jay Fink of Highland Park organized a drive to create a park in the village, named after his son, Larry Fink, who died on the flight.

That's it, although there is an online petition drive at thepetitionsite.com in support of a Flight 191 memorial.

The Internet has made it easier for Flight 191's surviving friends and family members to stay in touch.

"I think it's just starting to happen," Holmes said. "I know there are many people here in Los Angeles, and I don't know why I haven't connected with them. It's like I want to connect with them, and at the same time it's difficult, and it takes a lot of energy."

"The good thing is that everybody's life does move on," Jockl said.

"It's always there," Smith added, "but life goes on, and we have good memories. That's the important part."