~ Grave Histories ~

William Philip McNulty III (b. June 16, 1958 – d. July 19, 1989) & Anabel Lee McNulty (b. April 10, 1986 – d. July 19, 1989)
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In the later afternoon on July 19, 1989, United Flight 232 took off as normal from Stapleton International in Denver, CO en route Philadelphia International in Philadelphia, PA with a stopover at O’Hare International in Chicago, IL. The captain and officers had a combined experience of 77 years and 69,400 hours of flight time. UA232 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, its maiden flight 1973, and a capacity of 350 passengers and crew; on this day there was a combined total of 296 people on board.

Just under an hour after take-off, a sudden quake went through the plane from the tail to the cabin. The autopilot disengaged and the pilots quickly discovered very few of the craft’s controls still functioned. What had just occurred began with human error. Due to an impurity in a metal fan blade located in the rear engine, a hairline fracture began to form. With the type of testing the engine inspectors performed at the time, they should have been able to detect it. Now, at 37,000 feet, the fracture became a crack and the crack caused the fan to crumble, resulting in failure of the rear engine, and destruction of the horizontal stabilizer and all hydraulic systems, in addition to other critical controls located in the tail.

Making an emergency call to Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, IA, the tower cleared the tarmac and oked a crash landing zone with fire trucks on the ready. Since the hydraulics were gone, the wheels could not deploy. With the other controls gone, they could not slow the plane down any more from its 407 km/hr forward and 34 km/hr downward speed (nearly twice the forward speed and nearly 7 times the downward speed for a normal landing). The plane came down nose first, spewing fuel which ignited, then bounced and it cracked into several pieces.

Miraculously, due to the preparedness of the pilots and crew, of the 296 on board, 185 people came away from the catastrophe alive (including all 4 officers who, after full recovery, went back to work!). Unfortunately, however, 111 died in the crash—including Mr. McNulty and his little girl, Anabel Lee.

Mr. McNulty, originally from Lake Forest, IL, had married Constance Stahl in 1985 in Colorado, where he had attended university. He worked in Denver as a senior account executive for a financial firm. They had their daughter, Anabel Lee, in the spring of 1986. Mr. and Little Ms. McNulty were on the flight to O’Hare—presumably to Lake Forest since W. Philip’s family was still there. W. Philip and his little daughter, Anabel Lee, are here in Lake Forest, together still, buried side-by-side. While I can conjecture how they passed based on injury and accident reports, this is not the forum to do so; instead it is one to remember lives and the stories that they tell.

Not often do I find myself so emotionally struck by graves, but on occasion I have to keep myself from breaking down, this was one of those times. In front of the marker pictured here is a small, metal plaque, with an excerpt from E.A. Poe’s poem, “Annabel Lee” (spelled on the plaque as “Annabelle”):    

The Moon never beams without
bringing me dreams of the beautiful
Annabelle Lee
The Stars never rise but I see
the bright eyes of the beautiful
Annabelle Lee
We love you so much