50 years ago, a plane crashed into homes outside Chicago's Midway, killing 45 people. The neighborhood hasn’t forgotten

CHICAGO — Evan Cotter Jr. was getting ready to play hockey after school on a cold December afternoon in 1972 when the wing of a Boeing 737 slammed into the back of his family’s house.

From the bathroom, he heard the roar of jet engines that sounded far too low. His mother was in the kitchen as the tail of the plane went past the windows of the home on West 70th Place, more than a mile short of its destination at Midway Airport. Bricks, glass and the kitchen table flew through the house.

With what sounded to Cotter like a gas explosion, the plane plowed into the brick bungalows across the street. Forty-three people aboard the plane and two on the ground, at home, were killed.

The crash of United Flight 553 outside Midway on Dec. 8, 1972, left visible and invisible marks on family members and survivors. Swirled in unfounded conspiracy theories tied to the unfolding Watergate scandal