After having a rather scary wake vortex encounter while landing at Chicago O'Hare in March, it brought to mind the incident of a United Airlines 727 crashing in Lake Michigan in 1965. Anyone know if this wreckage still in Lake Michigan? I'm not sure how deep it was where it went down.
UA 727 crash in 1965
- Thread starter CapnBligh
- Start date
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diver_paula
Contributor
After a quick internet search I found the following:
"16 August 1965; United Airlines 727; near Lake Forest, IL: The aircraft had a controlled flight into the waters of Lake Michigan while on approach to Chicago. There was no indication of any unusual problem prior to impact. All six crew members and 24 passengers were killed."
This link is about the submersible that recovered 94.6% of the wreckage. Not sure how they calculated that! Also recovered 31 bodies.
www.transquest.org/recoverer/
"16 August 1965; United Airlines 727; near Lake Forest, IL: The aircraft had a controlled flight into the waters of Lake Michigan while on approach to Chicago. There was no indication of any unusual problem prior to impact. All six crew members and 24 passengers were killed."
This link is about the submersible that recovered 94.6% of the wreckage. Not sure how they calculated that! Also recovered 31 bodies.
www.transquest.org/recoverer/
beir
Contributor
diver_paula:
That's odd, based on the article there were only 30 people on board. Some poor soul on a canoe must've had the shock of a life time...sorry, I shouldn't joke
I'm about to take a long plane ride myself...knocking on wood....
diver_paula
Contributor
beir:That's odd, based on the article there were only 30 people on board. Some poor soul on a canoe must've had the shock of a life time...sorry, I shouldn't joke
Yeah, I caught that as well. I just didn't know which link was correct.
Have a safe trip!
diver_paula:
24 passengers and 6 crew (captain, first officer, flight engineer and three stews !!) ,..brings back fond memories of the days of superb leg room, wide seats, and airline subsidies.
6 crew plus 24 passengers equals 30, not 31. But my guess is the extra body is not a poor guy in a canoe but rather just some poor mob informant in cement over shoes. Or maybe he was the shooter on the grassy knoll.
I suspect the 94.6% figure was the determined during a reconstruction of the aircraft in a hangar somewhere - pretty common during FAA investigations of major air crashes.
ShakaZulu
Contributor
You guys did hear about the 2 seater Cessna that crashed in a semetry in Poland, by this morning 9:00am they already dug up 200 bodies.............
divemastertim
Guest
:lol2: LMAOThat extra body thing sounds like the way the a Japanese ship sunk in Guam and when it was discovered later, they found it on top of a German ship sunk in WWI (Cormorant?). Interesting article on the submersible. Supposedly this is one of a few cases the NTSB never solved. I wonder what the 5% left on the bottom would tell...
CapnBligh:
I asked a recovery guy once about the last 5% in crashes (he worked on flight 800 off Long Island). He said that those pieces fall into three categories:
1. Fell off before the wreck, and were either never found, or they were found by "commonfolk" and thrown away.
2. After impact, it floated away, or flew away (on land) and were never recovered.
3. Were so pulverized or destroyed on impact, that they are too small for recovery.
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