I was one of those people—I always checked the OAG (remember the OAG?) to see what equipment was operating the flight.
 
The day of flight 191’s crash, I was at O’Hare, in terminal 2, checking in for a flight to LAX on competitor United Airlines (operating a 727 to LAX).  I’ll never forget it when someone shouted, “Holy sh*t!  That plane’s gonna crash.”  I recall spinning around toward the direction of the voice, which had me facing more-or-less north, not in time to see the aircraft rolled over, but in time to see the smoke arise from the crash, as well as hear the sickening “thud” from the impact.  To say it was pandemonium in the terminal would have been the understatement of the century.
 
The DC-10 was apparently designed by the accounting department at McDonnell-Douglas, not the engineering department.  I have not traveled on one since 1975.  As history does repeat itself, it seems the MAX 8 is deja vu all over again.

https://www.wyomingnews.com/house-draw-fire/image_ab2c740a-60d5-11ef-a232-8fd86be6b4f0.html

I flew the DEN-ORD route regularly for business, and usually on a United DC-10. When UA 232 crashed in Iowa in 1989 after the tail engine blew, I remember my mom calling me in a panic to make sure I wasn’t on it. Didn’t really scare me off, though; I continued to seek out the plane in preference to narrow-bodies. I guess I figured then, as now, when your number is up, doesn’t matter if you’re on a plane or crossing a street and getting hit by a bus. No sense worrying about things you can’t control.

A few months later, my family took me on my first airplane flight, from Chicago to Cleveland. The plane was a DC-10, and our left engine flamed out a few seconds after takeoff. I soon came to understand that we were never in especially serious danger (though dozens of fire trucks awaited us on our emergency landing about 10 minutes later)… But my fear of flying was pretty well kindled that day.

Fourteen years later and it had been years since I last flew. As a Christmas present my parents bought me a spot in the American Airlines “AAirBorne” fear of flying class. And you can presumably guess what aircraft we got on our return “graduation flight” 🙂 That said, I made it, and although I am still a nervous flyer I have flown 20-50K miles every year since.

Well, for the record, Air Canada never flew the DC-10.

BA flew them for a while in the 1990s — inherited from British Caledonian Airways.

It was not a relaxed flight back to London.

This plane was a disaster from start to finish. All should have been grounded after the first crash.