In the history of aviation accidents, some tragedies acquire strange stories that linger long after investigators determine what went wrong. One of the most unsettling accounts linked to a major air disaster involves American Airlines Flight 191, the catastrophic crash near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on 25 May 1979 that killed 273 people. Years later, a man named David Booth claimed he had experienced repeated visions of the crash in the days leading up to the disaster, disturbing scenes he said he reported to authorities before the aircraft ever took off.
A vision that repeated night after night
Booth later described the experience as something different from an ordinary dream. “Everybody talks about a dream and everybody has dreams. I didn’t have a dream, I had a vision.” According to Booth, the scene unfolded the same way every time. He said he could see a bright day, a large airport and a long runway with a large passenger aircraft preparing for departure. “The dream would always start out in the same way. It was a bright sunlit day and I’m looking at a very large airport and a very long runway and there’s a really large plane.” In the vision, Booth said he could clearly identify the airline. “I can see American Airlines. I see the plane start to taxi on the runway and it gathers up speed.”But just as the aircraft began its takeoff, something seemed wrong. “All of a sudden, as it’s going off, there’s a perception in my mind that there’s something wrong with the sound that the engine is making.” Booth said the aircraft then lifted into the air briefly before catastrophe struck. Speaking later on the YouTube channel Our Paranormal World, he described seeing the aircraft climb and then suddenly roll before plunging back toward the ground. “It goes straight up in the air before it turns and goes straight back to the ground where it explodes in this humongous inferno and then this wave of despair.” He said the emotional impact of the scene felt almost physical. “Just like a physical object would just hit you right in the chest.”
Ten nights of the same disturbing vision
Experiencing such a dream once would be unsettling for anyone. Booth said the same vision returned night after night. According to his account, the sequence repeated ten times over ten consecutive nights, each time replaying the same catastrophic moment. He said the psychological strain of reliving the vision repeatedly became overwhelming. “Every day, it got worse and worse and worse. Not knowing what to do, not knowing what I was supposed to do. Not being able to forget an image seared, not just into my mind, but into the very fabric of my entire being.” Unsure what else to do, Booth decided to contact the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to report what he had seen.
Calls to the FAA
Booth eventually reached Jack Barker, the FAA’s public affairs director, who took his calls seriously even though the information he received was vague. Barker later recalled that Booth did not sound irrational. “David sounded perfectly sane and credible, there was nothing kookie about him at all. He’d had a disturbing dream seven nights in a row (at that point).” Barker said he listened carefully each time Booth called, but the visions lacked any specific details that authorities could act upon. “I would talk to him and listen to him but David’s dream didn’t give me enough information to do anything with it. It didn’t give a location, it didn’t give a flight, some numbers which didn’t make any sense.” Barker said he treated the calls respectfully but explained there was nothing officials could realistically investigate. “I said: ‘Thank you. There’s nothing we can do about it but thank you for the information.’”
The crash of American Airlines Flight 191
On 25 May 1979, the disaster Booth feared became reality. American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 travelling from Chicago to Los Angeles, crashed moments after takeoff from O’Hare International Airport. Shortly after the aircraft lifted off the runway, its left engine detached from the wing, causing severe damage that led to a rapid loss of control.
In 1979, American Airlines Flight 191 burst into flames less than a mile from the runway (Image: Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
The aircraft rolled and crashed into an open field near the airport before erupting in flames. All 271 people aboard the aircraft and two people on the ground were killed, bringing the total death toll to 273. There were no survivors, making it the deadliest aviation accident in United States history at the time.
Learning about the disaster
Booth later said he sensed something had changed on the final night of the visions. According to his account, the dream ended with a feeling that it would not return. The next morning he went to work as usual, but shortly after arriving, he received devastating news. He recalled the moment he was told about the crash. “I got up, went to work. I was at work for 15 minutes when the phone rang. ‘Dave I’m sorry to tell you, American Airlines Flight DC-10 has crashed an hour ago on take-off. Nobody survived.’” When Barker later learned about the disaster, he said the similarities between Booth’s account and the crash itself were unsettling. “It hit me just how accurate he was. What he dreamed was basically what happened.”Reflecting on the experience, Barker said the feeling was difficult to explain. “You’ve got to experience that to understand how eerie it is.”
Lingering questions and eerie stories
For Booth, the experience never fully faded. Years later he admitted he still thinks about the visions and wonders whether anything more could have been done. “I still think about it and I always still wonder was there anything else that I could’ve done?” In the aftermath of the crash, other strange stories also began circulating locally. Drivers passing the crash site reported seeing strange white lights moving across the field where the aircraft had gone down. Residents in a nearby trailer park described unexplained knocking sounds and dogs barking at an apparently empty field. Some residents even claimed a disoriented man had appeared at their doors late at night asking to retrieve his luggage before disappearing again. One account described a “smouldering man” who “smelled of gasoline” asking to make an emergency phone call. These stories were never verified, but they became part of the folklore surrounding the disaster.
The ominous reputation of Flight 191
The crash of Flight 191 also fed another aviation superstition. The flight number itself has become associated with several tragic incidents. Since 1963, six different flights carrying the number 191 have ended in fatal accidents. Whether coincidence or not, the number has developed an ominous reputation in aviation circles. For David Booth, however, the most haunting part of the story remains those ten nights before the crash, and the disturbing vision he says he could not stop seeing.
