Chicago O' Hare International Airport
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Chicago O'Hare International Airport , sometimes referred to as, Chicago O'Hare, or simply O'Hare, is the main
international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...
serving Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Loop business district. Operated by the Chicago Department of Aviation and covering ,, effective December 30, 2021. O'Hare has non-stop flights to 214 destinations in
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, South America, the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and the North Atlantic region as of November 2022. As of 2022, O'Hare is considered the world's most connected airport. Designed to be the successor to Chicago's Midway International Airport, itself nicknamed the "busiest square mile in the world," O'Hare began as an airfield serving a Douglas manufacturing plant for
C-54 The Douglas C-54 Skymaster is a four-engined transport aircraft used by the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and the Korean War. Like the Douglas C-47 Skytrain derived from the DC-3, the C-54 Skymaster was derived from a civilian a ...
military transports during World War II. It was renamed Orchard Field Airport in the mid-1940s and assigned the IATA code ORD. In 1949, it was renamed after aviator Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the U.S. Navy's first Medal of Honor recipient during that war. As the first major airport planned after World War II, O'Hare's innovative design pioneered concepts such as concourses, direct highway access to the terminal, jet bridges, and underground refueling systems. O'Hare became famous during the jet age, holding the distinction as the world's busiest airport from 1963 to 1998; today, it is the world's fourth-busiest airport for passenger counts, serving 54 million passengers in 2021. In 2019, O'Hare had 919,704 aircraft movements, averaging 2,520 per day, the most of any airport in the world in part because of a large number of regional flights. On the ground, road access to the airport is offered by airport shuttle, bus, or taxis by Interstate 190 ( Kennedy Expressway), which goes directly into the airport. O'Hare serves as a major hub for both United Airlines (which is headquartered in Willis Tower) and American Airlines. It is also a focus city for Spirit Airlines.


History


Establishment and defense efforts

Soon after the opening of Chicago Municipal Airport in 1926, the City of Chicago realized more airport capacity would be needed. The city government investigated various sites in the 1930s but made little progress before America's entry into World War II. O'Hare began as a manufacturing plant for Douglas C-54 Skymasters during World War II. The site was known as Orchard Place, previously a small German-American farming community. The plant, in the northeast corner of what is now the airport, needed easy access to the workforce of the nation's second-largest city, as well as its railroads and location far from enemy threat. Some 655 C-54s were built at the plant, more than half of all produced. The airfield, from which the C-54s flew out, was known as Douglas Airport; initially, it had four runways. Less known is the fact that it was the location of the Army Air Force's 803rd Specialized Depot, a unit charged with storing many captured enemy aircraft; a few representatives of this collection would eventually be transferred to the Smithsonian Institution's
National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...
. Douglas Company's contract ended with the war's conclusion. Douglas considered building airliners at Orchard, but chose to concentrate civil production at its headquarters in Santa Monica, California. With the departure of Douglas the complex took the name Orchard Field Airport, and was assigned the IATA code ORD. The United States Air Force used the field extensively during the Korean War; the airport then had no scheduled airline service. Although not its primary base in the area, the Air Force used O'Hare as a fighter base; it was home to the
62nd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron The 62d Fighter Squadron is part of the United States Air Force 56th Operations Group at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. It operates the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II aircraft conducting advanced fighter training. Mission The 62d Fighter S ...
flying North American F-86 Sabres from 1950 to 1959. By 1960, the need for O'Hare as an active duty fighter base was diminishing, just as commercial business was picking up at the airport. The Air Force removed active-duty units from O'Hare and turned the station over to Continental Air Command, enabling them to base reserve and
Air National Guard The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the ter ...
units there. As a result of a 1993 agreement between the City and the Department of Defense, the reserve base was closed on April 1, 1997, ending its career as the home of the 928th Airlift Wing and of the
126th Air Refueling Wing The 126th Air Refueling Wing (126 ARW) is a unit of the Illinois Air National Guard, stationed at Scott Air Force Base, Belleville, Illinois. If activated to federal service, the Wing is gained by the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command ...
in 1999. At that time, the remaining site came under the ownership of the Chicago Department of Aviation.


Early commercial development

In 1945 Chicago mayor Edward Kelly established a board to choose the site of a new airport to meet future demand. After considering various proposals, the board decided upon the Orchard Field site and acquired most of the federal government property in March 1946. The military retained a small parcel of property on the site and the right to use 25% of the airfield's operating capacity for free. Ralph H. Burke devised an airport master plan based on the pioneering idea of what he called "split finger terminals", allowing a terminal building to be attached to "airline wings" (concourses), each providing space for gates and planes. (Pre-war airport designs had favored ever-larger single terminals, exemplified by Berlin's Tempelhof.) Burke's design also included underground refueling, direct highway access to the front of terminals, and direct rail access from downtown, all of which are utilized at airports worldwide today. O'Hare was the site of the world's first jet bridge in 1958, and successfully adapted slip form paving, developed for the nation's new Interstate highway system, for seamless concrete runways. In 1949 the City renamed the facility O'Hare Airport to honor Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the U.S. Navy's first flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. Its IATA code (ORD) remained unchanged, however, resulting in O'Hare being one of the few IATA codes bearing no connection to the airport's name or metropolitan area.


Arrival of passenger service and subsequent growth

Scheduled passenger service began in 1955, but growth was slow at first. Although Chicago had invested over $25 million in O'Hare, Midway remained the world's busiest airport and airlines were reluctant to move until highway access and other improvements were completed. The April 1957 Official Airline Guide listed 36 weekday departures from O'Hare, while Midway had 414. Improvements began to attract the airlines: O'Hare's first international terminal opened in August 1958, and by April 1959 the airport had expanded to with new hangars, terminals, parking and other facilities. The
expressway Expressway may refer to: * Controlled-access highway, the highest-grade type of highway with access ramps, lane markings, etc., for high-speed traffic. * Limited-access road, a lower grade of highway or arterial road. *Expressway, the fictional s ...
link to downtown Chicago, now known as the Kennedy Expressway, was completed in 1960. And new Terminals2 and3, designed by C. F. Murphy and Associates, opened on January 1, 1962. The biggest factor driving the airlines from Midway to O'Hare was the jet airliner; the first scheduled jet at O'Hare was an American 707 from New York to Chicago to San Francisco on March 22, 1959. One-mile-square (1.6-kilometer-square) Midway had no space for the runways that 707s and DC-8s required. Airlines had been reluctant to move to O'Hare, but they naturally did not want to split their operations: in July 1962, the last fixed-wing scheduled airline flight in Chicago moved from Midway to O'Hare. Until United returned in July 1964, Midway's only scheduled airline was Chicago Helicopter Airways. The arrival of Midway's traffic quickly made O'Hare the world's busiest airport, serving 10 million passengers annually. Within two years, that number would double, with Chicagoans boasting that more people passed through O'Hare in 12 months than Ellis Island had processed in its entire existence. O'Hare remained the world's busiest airport until 1998. O'Hare had four runways in 1955; runway 14R opened in 1956 and was extended to a few years later, allowing nonstops to Europe. Runway 9R/27L (now 10L/28R) opened in 1968 and runway 4R/22L in 1971.


Post-deregulation developments

In the 1980s, after passage of US airline deregulation, the first major change at O'Hare occurred when TWA left Chicago for St. Louis as its main mid-continent hub. Although TWA had a large hangar complex at O'Hare and had started
Constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...
nonstops to Paris in 1958, by the time of deregulation its operation was losing $25 million a year under competition from United and American.
Northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...
likewise ceded O'Hare to the competition and shifted to a Minneapolis/St. Paul and Detroit-centered network by the early 1990s after acquiring Republic Airlines in 1986. Delta maintained a Chicago hub for some time, even commissioning a new ConcourseL in 1983. Ultimately, Delta found competing from an inferior position at O'Hare too expensive and closed its Chicago hub in the 1990s, concentrating its upper Midwest operations at Cincinnati. The dominant hubs established at O'Hare in the 1980s by United and American continue to operate today. United developed a new two-concourse Terminal1 (dubbed "The Terminal for Tomorrow"), designed by Helmut Jahn. It was built between 1985 and 1987 on the site of the original Terminal1; the structure, which includes 50 gates, is best known for its curved glass forms and the connecting underground tunnel between ConcoursesB andC. The tunnel is illuminated with a neon installation titled ''Sky's the Limit'' (1987) by Canadian artist Michael Hayden, which plays an airy, slow-tempo version of '' Rhapsody in Blue''. American renovated and expanded its existing facilities in Terminal3 from 1987 to 1990; those renovations feature a flag-lined entrance hall to ConcoursesH/K. The demolition of the original Terminal 1 in 1984 to make way for Jahn's design forced a "temporary" relocation of international flights into facilities called "Terminal4" on the ground floor of the airport's central parking garage. International passengers were then bused to and from their aircraft. Relocation finally ended with the completion of the 21-gate International Terminal in 1993 (now called Terminal5); it contains all
customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
facilities. Its location, on the site of the original cargo area and east of the terminal core, necessitated the construction of the
Airport Transit System The Airport Transit System (ATS) is an automated people mover system at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. It opened on May 6, 1993. The ATS moves passengers between the airport terminals and parking facilities, and was designed to operate 24 ...
people-mover, which connected the terminal core with the new terminal as well as remote rental and parking lots. Following deregulation and the buildup of the American and United hubs, O'Hare faced increasing delays from the late 1980s onward due to its inefficient runway layout; the airfield had remained unchanged since the addition of its last new runway (4R/22L) in 1971. O'Hare's three pairs of angled runways were meant to allow takeoffs into the wind, but they came at a cost: the various intersecting runways were both dangerous and inefficient. Official reports at the end of the 1990s ranked O'Hare as one of the worst-performing airports in the United States based on the percentage of delayed flights. In 2001, the Chicago Department of Aviation committed to an O'Hare Modernization Plan (OMP). Initially estimated at $6.6 billion, the OMP was to be paid by bonds issued against the increase in the federal
passenger facility charge A passenger facility charge (PFC) is a fee that almost all airline travelers in the United States pay in their ticket price. The fee goes toward the upkeep and maintenance of airports, and is set up and capped according to US federal law. The law ...
enacted that year and federal airport improvement funds. The modernization plan was approved by the FAA in October 2005 and involved a complete reconfiguration of the airfield. The OMP included the construction of four new runways, lengthening two existing runways, and decommissioning three old runways to provide O'Hare with six parallel runways and two crosswind runways. The OMP was the subject of legal battles, both with suburbs who feared the new layout's noise implications as well as with survivors of persons interred in a cemetery the city proposed to relocate; some of the cases were not resolved until 2011. These issues, plus the reduction in traffic as a result of the
2008 financial crisis 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
, delayed the OMP's completion; construction of the sixth and final parallel runway (9C/27C) began in 2016. Its completion in 2020, along with an extension of runway 9R/27L completed in 2021, concluded the OMP.


Expansion

In 2018 the city and airlines committed to PhaseI of a new Terminal Area Plan dubbed O'Hare 21. The plan is to build two all-new satellite concourses to the southwest of Concourse C, and to expand Terminals 2 and 5 with additional gates, lounges, and updates to operations all over the airport (Terminal 5 will have ten new gates in addition to its expanded facilities, plus two additional gates to each accommodate an Airbus A380). The expansion will enable same-terminal transfers between international and domestic flights, faster connections, improved facilities and technology for TSA and
customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
inspections and much larger landside amenities like shopping and restaurants. A principal feature of the plan is the reorganization of the terminal core into an "alliance hub," the first in North America; airside connections and layout will be optimized around airline alliances. This will be made possible by the construction of the O'Hare Global Terminal (OGT) where Terminal2 currently stands. The OGT and two new satellite concourses will allow for expansion for both American's and United's international operations as well as easy interchange with their respective Oneworld (American) and Star Alliance (United) partner carriers, eliminating the need to transfer to Terminal 5. This project will add over to the airport's terminals, add a new
customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
processing center in the OGT, reconstruct gates and concourses (new concourses will be a minimum of wide), increase the gate count from 185 to 235, and provide 25% more ramp space at every gate throughout the airport to accommodate larger aircraft. After an international design competition that featured public voting on five final architectural proposals, the Studio ORD group, led by architect Jeanne Gang, was selected to design the OGT, while Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP will design Satellites1 and2. By terms of the agreement, total costs of $8.5 billion for the project are to be borne by bonds issued by the city, which will be retired by airport usage fees paid by the airlines. O'Hare 21 is scheduled for completion of the two satellite terminals in 2027 and 2028, and overall completion in 2030.


Facilities


Terminals

O'Hare has four numbered passenger terminals with nine lettered concourses and a total of 191 gates. *Terminal 1 contains 50 gates on two concourses, lettered B–C. *Terminal 2 contains 41 gates on two concourses, lettered E–F. *Terminal 3 contains 79 gates on four concourses, lettered G, H, K, and L. *Terminal 5 contains 40 gates on one concourse, lettered M. Terminals 1–3 are interconnected airside. Terminal 5 is separated from the other terminals by a set of taxiways that cross over the airport's access road, requiring passengers to exit security, ride a shuttle bus or take the
Airport Transit System The Airport Transit System (ATS) is an automated people mover system at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. It opened on May 6, 1993. The ATS moves passengers between the airport terminals and parking facilities, and was designed to operate 24 ...
and then re–clear security before boarding. All non pre–cleared international flights arrive at Terminal 5 as it currently contains the airport's sole U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility.


Runways

O'Hare has two sets of parallel runways, one on either side of the terminal complex. Each airfield has three parallel east–west runways (9L/27R, 9C/27C, and 9R/27L on the north side; 10L/28R, 10C/28C, and 10R/28L on the south side) and a crosswind runway oriented northeast–southwest (4R/22L on the north, 4L/22R on the south). The north crosswind runway, 4L/22R, sees limited usage due to intersecting 9R/27L and 9C/27C; however, runway 22L is often used for takeoffs during what is called "west flow" on the main runways. The airfield is managed by three FAA air traffic control towers. O'Hare has a voluntary nighttime (22:00–07:00) noise abatement program. Currently, O'Hare has the most runways of any civilian airport in the world, totaling eight.


Hotel

The Hilton Chicago O'Hare is between the terminal core and parking garage and is currently the only hotel on airport property. It is owned by the Chicago Department of Aviation and operated under an agreement with Hilton Hotels, who extended their agreement with the city by ten years in 2018.


Ground transportation

The O'Hare
Airport Transit System The Airport Transit System (ATS) is an automated people mover system at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. It opened on May 6, 1993. The ATS moves passengers between the airport terminals and parking facilities, and was designed to operate 24 ...
shuttles passengers between the terminal core (Terminals 1–3), Terminal 5, and the O'Hare Multi-Modal Facility. The system, which re-opened on November 3, 2021, resumed round-the-clock service starting at 5 a.m. on Monday, April 18, 2022, after a nearly six-year renovation. Meanwhile, free shuttle buses also continue to run 24/7 and contribute to congestion, boarding on the upper (departures) level of all terminals. The Bus Shuttle center, located on the ground level of the parking garage between Terminals 1–3 and directly opposite the Hilton Hotel, provides a temporary boarding location for local hotel shuttles and regional public transport buses. The O'Hare Multi-Modal Facility is the home of all on-airport car rental firms as well as some extended parking. In addition, the Chicago-area commuter rail system, Metra, has a transfer station of its North Central Service (NCS) located at the northeast corner of the MMF; however, the NCS currently operates an occasional schedule on weekdays only. The
CTA CTA may refer to: Legislation *Children's Television Act, American legislation passed in 1990 that enforces a certain degree of educational television *Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 *Criminal Tribes Act, British legislation in India passed in 1871 wh ...
Blue Line's north terminus is at and provides direct service to downtown via the
Milwaukee–Dearborn subway The Milwaukee–Dearborn subway is an underground section of the Chicago "L" system in The Loop, Chicago, Illinois. It is long and forms the central part of the Blue Line. As of February 2013, the subway serves an average of 44,584 passengers ...
in the Loop and continuing to west suburban
Forest Park A forest park is a park whose main theme is its forest of trees. Forest parks are found both in the mountains and in the urban environment. Examples Chile * Forest Park, Santiago China *Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai * Mufushan National Fores ...
. Trains depart at intervals ranging from every four to thirty minutes, 24 hours a day. The station is located on the lower level of the parking garage, and can be accessed directly from Terminals1–3 via tunnel and from Terminal5 via shuttle bus. O'Hare is directly served by Interstate 190, which offers interchanges with Mannheim Road (
U.S. 12 U.S. Route 12 (US 12) is an east–west United States highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Michigan, for almost . The highway has mostly been superseded by Interstate 90 (I-90) and I-94, but unlike most U.S. routes that ...
and 45), the Tri-State Tollway (
Interstate 294 Interstate 294 (I-294) is a tolled auxiliary Interstate Highway in northeastern Illinois. It forms the southern portion of the Tri-State Tollway in Illinois. I-294 runs from South Holland at I-80/ I-94 and Illinois Route 394 (IL 394) to N ...
), and
Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...
. I-90 continues as the Kennedy Expressway into downtown Chicago and becomes the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway northwest to Rockford and the Wisconsin state line.


Cargo facilities

There are presently two main cargo areas at O'Hare. The South Cargo Area was relocated in the 1980s from the airport's first air cargo facilities, located east of the terminal core, where Terminal5 now stands. Many of the structures in this new cargo area then had to be rebuilt, again, to allow for the OMP and specifically runway 10R/28L; as a result, what is now called the South Cargo Area is located between 10R/28L and 10C/28C. This large collection of facilities, in three sections (Southwest, South Central, and Southeast), was established mainly by traditional airline-based air cargo; Air France Cargo, American,
JAL Cargo , also known as JAL (''Jaru'') or , is an international airline and Japan's flag carrier and largest airline as of 2021 and 2022, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, ...
, KLM, Lufthansa Cargo, Northwest and United all built purpose-built, freestanding cargo facilities, although some of these are now leased out to dedicated cargo firms. In addition, the area contains two separate facilities for shipper
FedEx FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "Fe ...
and one for
UPS UPS or ups may refer to: Companies and organizations * United Parcel Service, an American shipping company ** The UPS Store, UPS subsidiary ** UPS Airlines, UPS subsidiary * Underground Press Syndicate, later ''Alternative Press Syndicate'' or ...
. The Northeast Cargo Area (NEC) is a conversion of the former military base (the Douglas plant area) at the northeast corner of the airport property. It is a new facility designed to increase O'Hare's cargo capacity by 50%. Two buildings currently make up the NEC: a building completed in 2016, and a building that was completed in 2017. A third structure will complete the NEC with another of warehouse space. The current capability of the cargo areas provide of airside cargo space with parking for 40 wide-body freighters matched with over of landside warehousing capability. O'Hare shipped over in 2018, fifth among airports in the U.S.


Other facilities

In 2011, O'Hare became the first major airport to build an apiary on its property; every summer, it hosts as many as 75 hives and a million bees. The bees are maintained by 30 to 40 ex-offenders with little to no work experience and few marketable skills; they are primarily recruited from Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood. They are taught beekeeping but also benefit from the bees' labor, turning it into bottled fresh honey, soaps, lip balms, candles and moisturizers marketed under the ''beelove'' product line. More than 500 persons have completed the program, transferring to jobs in manufacturing, food processing, customer service, and hospitality; the repeat-offender rate is reported to be less than 10%.


Airlines and destinations


Passenger

Notes: * : Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to O'Hare stops at Dublin, but the flight from O'Hare to Addis Ababa is direct.


Cargo


Statistics


Top destinations


Airline market share


Annual traffic


On-Time performance (domestic major U.S. Carriers Only)


Major accidents and incidents

The following is a list of major crashes or incidents that occurred to planes at O'Hare, on approach, or just after takeoff from the airport: * On September 17, 1961,
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706 was a Lockheed L-188 Electra aircraft, registration which crashed on take-off from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport September 17, 1961. All 37 on board were killed in the accident. Flight 706 began i ...
, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashed upon takeoff, killing all 37 on board. * On August 16, 1965,
United Airlines Flight 389 United Airlines Flight 389 was a scheduled flight from LaGuardia Airport, New York City, New York, to O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois. On August 16, 1965, at approximately 21:21 EST, the Boeing 727 crashed into Lake Michigan ...
, a Boeing 727, crashed east of O'Hare while on approach, killing all 30 on board. * On December 27, 1968,
North Central Airlines Flight 458 On December 27, 1968, North Central Airlines Flight 458 crashed into a hangar while attempting a night landing in poor weather at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Of the 41 passengers and ...
, a Convair CV-580, crashed into a hangar at O'Hare, killing 27 on board and one on the ground. * On December 20, 1972,
North Central Airlines Flight 575 North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''no ...
, a Douglas DC-9, crashed upon takeoff after colliding with
Delta Airlines Flight 954 Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also re ...
, a
Convair CV-880 The Convair 880 is an American narrow-body jet airliner produced by the Convair division of General Dynamics. It was designed to compete with the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 by being smaller but faster, a niche that failed to create demand. Whe ...
which was taxiing across the active runway; 10 passengers on the DC-9 were killed. * On May 25, 1979,
American Airlines Flight 191 American Airlines Flight 191 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight in the United States operated by American Airlines from Chicago O'Hare International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport. On the afternoon of May 25, ...
, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 on a Memorial Day weekend flight to
Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...
, had its left engine detach while taking off from runway 32R, then stalled and crashed into a field some away. 273 died, including two on the ground, in the deadliest single-aircraft crash in United States history, and the worst aviation disaster in U.S. history prior to the
September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
. * On March 19, 1982, a United States Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker crashed upon approach to O'Hare northwest of the city (near Woodstock), killing 27 people on board. * On February 9, 1998,
American Airlines Flight 1340 Since the first flight of the prototype in February 1963, a total of 119 of the 1,832 Boeing 727s built have been lost due to crashes, terrorist acts and other causes as of February 2019. 1960s *August 16, 1965: United Airlines Flight 389, a new ...
, a Boeing 727, crashed upon landing from Kansas City, injuring 22 passengers. * On November 7, 2006, 12 United Airlines employees and a few witnesses outside the airport at Chicago O'Hare International Airport reported a UFO sighting. The Federal Aviation Administration declined to investigate the incident because the UFO was not seen on radar and called it a "weather phenomenon". * On October 28, 2016, American Airlines Flight 383 aborted takeoff after a fire in the right engine of the
Boeing 767 The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...
; 20 passengers and one flight attendant were injured. *On January 28, 2022, a China Airlines cargo Boeing 747 skid on the ramp in icy conditions crashing into airport ground equipment. The aircraft's engines sustained moderate damage from the accident. *On August 5, 2022, a Qatar Airways cargo
Boeing 777-200 The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long-range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the world's largest twinjet. The 777 was designed to bridge the gap betw ...
with registration A7-BFH collided with a
lamp post A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution ...
while taxiing on runway 10C. The lamp post became embedded in the leading edge of the right wing of the aircraft. There were no injuries.


See also

* List of the world's busiest airports, for a complete list of the busiest airports in the world


References

*


External links

*
O'Hare Modernization Program
City of Chicago
Council Ordinance authorizing ORD21
(with TAP attached, O2018-1124 (V1).pdf), City of Chicago

Northwest Chicago Historical Society * The Fascinating History of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport
1920–19601960–20002000 to Present
* *
Live KORD airplane map radar
* {{DEFAULTSORT:O'hare International Airport Airports established in 1943 1944 establishments in Illinois Airports in Cook County, Illinois Airports in DuPage County, Illinois American Airlines Buildings and structures in Chicago United Airlines