6 minute read
Greg Budell
THE LIFE ALTERING CRASH OF FLIGHT 553
"A true story from the Greg files"
In 1972, WMAQ was an NBC owned and operated radio station. It was part of NBC Chicago, grandly housed in the 19th and 20th floors of Chicago’s massive Merchandise Chicago's Merchandise Mart Mart on the north bank of the Chicago River.
“Yes”, he said turning around. “I’m dropping my new album off for the program manager. Will you see he gets it?”. Imagine, Andy Griffith in my office asking a simple favor!
At 19, I was working as a talk show producer. I lined up topics, guests and answered the phones for Joel Sebastian for his 10AM-2PM show-all for the princely wage of $2 per hour. While the job required me to start at 9 for pre-show prep, the Finance Ministers of the National Broadcasting Company determined I only be paid for the 4 hours Joel was on the air. I did a damn good job for $8 per day. After the show, I would often enjoy (seriously) lunch at the legendary NBC commissary for half a buck. I managed all this while attending the University of Illinois full-time.
At that point I had no desire to be on the air. I wanted a career in radio management, designing formats and studying audiences.
Working with Joel was fun. We had some crazy big-name guests. They were easy to book because we were, well- NBC! I could drop a ton of names here but I’ll never forget arriving to my small office before the show one morning. I saw a tall, well-dressed man standing there- his back to the door. “Can I help you, sir?”, I asked politely. We had a large news staff. I could hear the assignment chief trying to bark out a strategy for coverage.
For obvious personal reasons I wanted to see where this Boeing 737 had come down, hitting “multiple houses”. I went to our GM, a great radio guy named Lee Davis, and said I knew how to get to the crash area from a back route.
“Great!” he said. “Here is the hotline number. Call when you get there. If no one is on the scene you can go on the air with Clark!”
I knew every network would be using the expected thoroughfares to reach the crash site, and that with every passing minute the story would become more “viral”. Those roads would gridlock from emergency vehicles and curiosity seekers. Breaking every rule in the book I managed to get my bronze ’72 Vega to within one block in twenty minutes
↘while traffic flow elsewhere paralyzed. I grabbed my notebook, NBC I.D. and ran the last block through slush. As I hit 70th place, a street I’d driven a thousand times, I was greeted by the surreal site of a United Airlines 737 tail section sitting in the street a hundred yards away. The rest of the jet was burning.
On Friday, December 8, 1972, Joel’s show had concluded. Shortly after 2PM, I was walking down the hall when the overhead speaker (carrying WMAQ’s Clark Weber show) was interrupted for news bulletin. Everyone in the hall paused to listen. A
commercial plane had crashed approaching Midway Airport! Huge news! My jaw hit the floor when the first report said it had come down on 70th Place- a mile from my house and the very street where my girlfriend and her family lived.
Greg reported from the Tworzydlo house in the lower right corner
out 5 houses. The first undamaged house was owned by my friends, the Tworzydlo family. They’d been home, shocked by what sounded like a bomb. They let me into their home. From their kitchen window, I watched fire rescue pull bodies and shockingly, treat survivors pulled from the fuselage which came to a rest where their next-door neighbor’s house had stood. The nose of the jet was stopped by a tree. The cockpit crew was dead, still in their seats. because my 19-year-old punk butt made them look like losers. Soreheads! I would meet many more SHs over the next 50 years. My only advantage that day was knowing the back route in!
One thing changed. The excitement of the event became the radio “bug” that bit me. December 8th means I’ve been scratching that itch for 50 years. 50 freakin’ years! If only someone had warned me how fast they’d pass.
I asked Mrs. Tworzydlo if I could use the phone. For the next 2 hours I gave the first and only on-scene reports from the crash on Clark Weber’s show. I was surprised to see FBI agents show up, engaging in animated conversation with firemen. I saw them removed a singed, black briefcase and other items before they departed. It was weird, within the entire weirdness of the event.
A surreal scene on 70th Place 12/8/72 Chicago
some convinced the plane was sabotaged before leaving Washington DC. Why? Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt’s wife (killed) was on the flight. The singed briefcase was filled with $10,000 in onehundred-dollar bills. A CBS reporter and 6 oil executives (all killed) were also on the plane. 16 survived when the tail broke off while everything forward of that section skidded into a home exploding in flame. An accident investigating attorney named Sherman Skolnick pursued these connections to sabotage for years but was stonewalled by government agencies. I left WMAQ after the crash to launch an onair career with ABC-FM. Skolnick would be a guest on my new show. His fantastic story was entertaining but hard to believe because we had faith in the CIA, FBI and NTSB in those naïve days. If United 553 happened today with similar circumstances, Skolnick would be far more credible. Far more than the credibility earned by those agencies today.
I found an eyewitness who heard the jet’s engines running at full speed before it fell to the ground. One scoop after another, while my news pals from NBC and the other networks were stuck in gridlocked traffic.
The following Monday Frank Barnako, WMAQ’s terrific news director, put a memo out praising me for giving WMAQ exclusive coverage. Lee Davis got me $100 from the NBC tightwads. No one in the WMAQ newsroom would talk to me It wasn’t my being in the right place at the right time. I was lucky enough to know the fastest route there.
EPILOGUE: United Airlines Flight 553 was helmed by a very experienced crew. When the pilot realized the plane was going down, he stalled it, and steered the jet away from a Catholic school complex- greatly reducing the potential death toll. 2 were killed in their homes. Conspiracy theories raged on the cause-
(If you have a comment on this column, email me at gregbudell@aol.com. It's still fun to hear from new people!)
Greg Budell lives in Montgomery with his wife, Roz, and dog, Brisco. He's been in radio since 1970, and has marked 17 years in the River Region. He hosts the Newstalk 93.1FM Morning Show with Rich Thomas and Jay Scott, 6-9 AM Monday - Friday. He returns weekday afternoons from 3-6 PM for Happy Hour with sidekick, Rosie Brock. Greg can be reached at gregbudell@aol.com
