I'm riveted to the live coverage of a plane crash on the south side. It's been snowing for quite a while. There were reports of the snowfall being 8.3". Southwest Flight 1248 from Baltimore "landed" around 7:15pm on runway 31C at Midway (6, 522 feet long, but only 5, 826 usable for landing). Don't know what happened, but the plane never stopped. It just rolled off the end of the runway, went through the fence, and landed in the intersection of 55th Street and Central Avenue. The front nose gear collapsed, and the plane pinned at least one car, maybe two, underneath it.There was a family in one of them - just heard an 6 year old boy died from being in one of those cars. 98 people were on the plane. And the snow just keeps coming down. Midway is closed until 6am tomorrow.

Would you believe there was a crash at Midway 33 years ago today? The story of United 533 is below.

Still snowing outside my window, though it doesn't look as bad. We got hit hard - the rush hour was bad. I heard a story of travel times at 4 hours from Lake Cook to downtown on the Edens.

Flight 533 left Washington D.C. for Omaha, Nebraska stopping in Chicago. Approaching Midway the pilot was instructed by the control tower to execute a "missed approach" pattern. The pilot applied full power to go around for another landing attempt. At 2:27 p.m., 1.5 miles from the airport, Flight 533 hit the branches of trees on the south side of 71st Street. It then hit the roofs of a number of neighborhood bungalows before plowing into the home of Mrs. Veronica Kuculich at 3722 70th Place, demolishing the home and killing her and a daughter, Theresa. The plane burst into flames killing a total of 45 persons, 43 of them on the plane, including the pilot and first and second officers. Eighteen passengers survived.

Among the passengers killed were U.S. Representative George Collins (7th), a former 24th Ward Alderman, and Mrs. Dorothy Hunt. Her husband, E. Howard Hunt, had been indicted on charges of conspiring to break into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. Found in the debris was a purse belonging to Mrs. Hunt containing $10,585 in cash. There was immediate concern that the money might be linked to the financial dealings surrounding the Nixon "slush fund" to which defendants in the Watergate case had access and that the crash therefore might be linked to sabotage. In the end sabotage was ruled out, but the mystery surrounding the money and the deaths of such prominent, politically connected individuals insured a very thorough investigation.

The NTSB issued its report after recreating the last minutes of the flight based on the flight and voice recording instruments, interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses on the ground, and physical evidence. According to the report, when Midway's control tower directed the crew to abort the landing and try again, they became distracted and failed to prepare a proper landing. As they attempted to pull the jet from the landing descent, the crew forgot to deactivate the wing spoilers. The plane stalled. And then it crashed.