The first of September marks 65 years since the night that shook the Western Suburbs

By Maureen Callahan

Milestones – even tragic ones -are worth commemorating. September 1st – just a few days ago – marked the 65th anniversary of the deadliest plane crash in American commercial aviation history, up to that date.

TWA Flight 529 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger route between Boston and San Francisco, with intermediate stops in New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Just after 2 a.m. on the morning of September 1st, 1961, the Las Vegas leg of the flight took off from Midway Airport. About five minutes later, the Lockheed L-049 Constellation plane crashed from an altitude of approximately 5,000 feet into a field in what was then unincorporated Clarendon Hills.

The 73 passengers and five crew members aboard died on impact.

According to a Time magazine article written shortly thereafter, neighbors near the crash site – north of 61st and south of 59th Streets, between Clarendon Hills Rd and Bentley Ave – reported hearing engines sputtering overhead followed by an ear-piercing roar. The four-engine propeller airliner then skidded a half mile through a field of corn and soybeans as the flames grew higher and higher.

The Maloney Family

Homeowners remembered their homes shaking and the horrific sight and sounds of the plane as it burst into flames after it crunched into the earth. Some reported their initial suspicion was a nuclear explosion at nearby Argonne Laboratory in Lemont. Others feared Chicago might have been bombed, as the Cuban Missile Crisis raged in the background of that moment in history.

Volunteer firefighter Frank Trout was just seventeen years old when the phone rang, summoning the squad to a farm field just west of Route 83 in what is now Clarendon Hills. “My dad and I were both volunteer firemen,” Trout recalled. “Back in those days, you carried your boots, helmet, and coat in the car and you met the engine at the site. So we jumped in the car and drove straight over. By then, most of the fire had actually gone out because there had been one big explosion and most of the fuel had burned off.”

“The plane had come from Midway and had circled around and tried to get back to the airport when the pilot started having trouble controlling the throttle,” said Trout. Investigations by the Civil Aeronautics Board determined the cause of the crash to have been the loss of a steel bolt from the back wing section, which had impaired the pilot’s ability to control the pitch of the aircraft.

Glenn Haack, who lived near the site, thought he heard someone calling out for help when he ran over to the scene that night. Haack said that memory haunted him for decades.

The prayer book that belonged to Mary Kay Maloney.

It took weeks for the investigation crews to document the disaster. Miraculously, no homes were hit, although the roof shingles of one house that bordered the field had melted. “Nuts, bolts, and other bits of the wreckage still turn up from time to time when the ground heaves during winter months,” said Clarendon Hills Historical Society President Mary Brown. Each precious relic of shredded metal is preserved. For example, a metal tray that had held a Swanson dinner, now distorted to half its original size.

Four local passengers were among the casualties –  a nurse from MacNeal Hospital, a pharmacist from Evanston, and two servicemen returning to duty in California. There were 20 children in the mix of tourists, families, and businessmen.

Another four close friends from Suncook, New Hampshire, were anxious to start their careers in Los Angeles. All were twenty years old.

Then there were families, like the Maloneys from St Cloud, Minnesota, and the Chamberlains from New Britain, Connecticut, that lost seven and six members apiece, respectively. Five members of the Gilliam family had been visiting grandparents on the East Coast and were making their way back to Northern California.

Among the five crew members, twenty-four-year-old flight attendant Barbara Pearson was recently married and had learned she was pregnant. She was on her way home to tell her husband on her last flight before leaving her job for motherhood. The other flight attendant, twenty-one-year-old Nanette Fidger, was on her second-to-last flight before leaving TWA to get married.

Five years ago, on the 60th anniversary of the tragedy, a memorial marker was placed in Prairie Trail Park in Clarendon Hills, just east of the scene. The names of all 78 souls lost that night, along with the first responders that arrived first on the scene, appear on the marker; a constant reminder of the fragile line between life and death.

Memorial marker placed on the 60th anniversary in nearby Prairie Trail Park, Willowbrook.
Photos courtesy of the Clarendon Hills Historical Society

Memories of Volunteer Firefighter Frank Trout:

“The plane went full throttle into the ground. It looked like a bolt of lightning from the sky. It was a ball of fire from the point of impact – a giant explosion. Unbelievable. Most of the fire had gone out before we got there, but there were small spot fires throughout the field. Frantically, we searched for survivors. Some passengers were still strapped into their seats, but basically everyone was killed on impact. At the end of the field was a patch of pine trees. A sailor was pinned high up in one of them. I can still see him in my head. We got him down. We set up lights and generators and waited for sunlight so we could see what had actually happened. Fire and emergency equipment, along with police assistance, arrived on the scene in the following days from every department from here to Indiana. People really came together from nearby communities like Hinsdale, Downers Grove, and Westmont to help however they could in the following weeks.”