TWA Flight 154 departed San Francisco at 00:45 on an Instrument Flight Plan for New York with one stop scheduled at Chicago. Over Moline, IL, Chicago Air Route Traffic Control cleared the flight to Aurora Illinois, and instructed it to hold west of the Aurora Intersection because of an estimated two-hour traffic delay. Flight 154 reported over the Aurora Intersection at 07:03, and a few minutes later the captain requested a clearance to return to Omaha. This clearance was granted. Seven minutes later, at 07:10, while en route to Omaha the company issued the flight revised instructions to proceed to Kansas City. While en route to Kansas City, the company’s Kansas city dispatcher informed the flight that if they returned to Chicago immediately, an approach clearance could be obtained without delay. Accordingly, the flight returned to Chicago and upon arrival there approach control cleared it to make an ILS approach and to land on runway 13R. At this time the Chicago weather was reported: ceiling 300 feet, visibility 1-1/2 miles with moderate fog and smoke, and wind west-southwest at 8 mph. The ILS approach was abandoned at the captains discretion and he started another. On this second approach the aircraft was observed to touchdown approximately 3,200 feet from the approach end of the runway. From this point, it traveled the remaining 2,530 feet of the runway, traveled 875 feet beyond the far end of runway 13R and went through a heavy wire fence, crossed a parking lot and struck a billboard and a large ornamental stone pillar before coming to rest. Contact with these structures extensively damaged the aircraft. PROBABLE CAUSE: “The Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the execution by the pilot of a final approach at an excessive air speed and a landing too far down the runway.”