United Flight 533: Accident Or Sabotage?

     It was around two thirty in the afternoon of Friday December 8, 1972 that United Airlines flight 533 crashed into a residential area just outside of Chicago while approaching Midway Airport.  The crash raised questions almost as soon as it occurred.  Those questions are still being asked today.  

     Witnesses living in the neighborhood have claimed that several individuals who appeared to have some sort of official capacity appeared on the scene within minutes and took control of the scene.  The witnesses say the men were sifting through the ruble as though they were looking for something in particular.  Who were they and what were they looking for?  No one seems to know, but this is not the only strange thing about this case.

     Almost immediately after the crash people began to whisper about one or more of the passengers being the target of an assassination.  Who were these controversial passengers on board flight 533 and who wanted them dead?  Was the crash the result of sabotage to murder these individuals?

     There are some who believe as many as twelve people on board flight 533 were the target of murder that day in 1972 because of their connection to the Watergate scandal or justice department cases.  One of the individuals was CBS News reporter, Michelle Clark, who was working on a Watergate story and was interviewing Dorothy Hunt, the wife of E. Howard Hunt who had been charged in the Watergate break in.  Dorothy Hunt was also on the flight and was reportedly carrying at least $10,000 in cash with her and had allegedly taken out $200,000 in flight insurance before she boarded the plane.  It has long been rumored that E. Howard Hunt and Dorothy Hunt had been blackmailing the Nixon White House, threatening to provide documents to the press that would show Nixon was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.  The Hunts were upset over the loss of income and mounting legal bills since Hunt's Watergate arrest and wanted money from the Nixon administration.  The allegation is that someone in the Nixon administration finally provided money to the Hunt's and that Dorothy Hunt was in charge of dispersing the funds to the Watergate burglars and their families.  Other rumors say Dorothy was paying off individuals who had assisted the Watergate burglars in the operation and that's the reason she was flying to Chicago.  The rumors are that the Hunt's kept asking for more money and someone within the Nixon administration decided it would be better to kill Dorothy Hunt and send a message to her husband and the other burglars rather than keep paying money to the Hunts.

     Mrs. Hunt's fellow passengers that day on flight 533 included several individuals from Northern Natural Gas.  It is alleged that some of them were actively blackmailing Attorney General John Mitchell.  Others on board were rumored to have knowledge of Nixon's secret slush fund.

     Longtime political activist, Dick Gregory, has claimed that there were strong attempts to guide him toward taking flight 533 that day.  He changed his mind and then grew suspicious after the flight crashed.  On the other side of the coin, Lawrence O'Connor, a Chicago resident, took the flight every Friday like clockwork, claims that on this particular Friday he was urged by a friend not to take flight 533.  Ironically O'Connor's friend worked in the white house.

     The official cause of the crash was listed as equipment malfunction, but the controversy remains to this day.  What do you think?  Was it a tragic accident?  Or was it an act of sabotage?  Did the crash have anything to do with the Watergate scandal or the Nixon administration?  And why was Dorothy Hunt traveling with so much money?