CBS2's Dave Lopez, who covered the tragedy that day, takes a look back at the disaster. It was a life-changing experience, Knabe said. There they were finally able to pull each other over the fence to Carmenita and safety. Neally finally found his family in the backyard, trapped. The DC-9, whose tail . At least I know its OK. Audrey said its OK. Thats nice to know. I used to say, Thats the way its going to be. Im not the same. The women and the children died. Numerous residents declined to be interviewed. Alex Guzman, left, of Santa Fe Springs, holds photos of his father, Joe Guzman, left, and brother, Robert Guzman, right, both who died on flight 498, at the 25 year memorial Wednesday, at the Cerritos Sculpture Garden in Cerritos. How much this 58% increase in the number of near-collisions reflects the safety of the skies since the crash is questionable. Their small plane fluttering down into the field at Cerritos Elementary school. This month, workmen finished the first two complete rebuilding jobs: On Holmes Avenue, close to where the jets 50-ton fuselage fell, a new family moved into a rented home on the spot where five people died. Their terror had to be a hundred times worse than ours, Wes Neally said. We didnt know until we ran out the house and saw what happened.. OHair, former chief of community outreach for the San Diego County Department of Mental Health, said that as long as 2 1/2 years after the San Diego crash, we were seeing people who we hadnt seen before who were saying, essentially, I cant go on with this (memory of the crash), its interfering with my life too much. But it doesnt go away. The crash killed him, their daughter Angelicia, 14, and their son, Javier, 16. I have to pinch myself to get out of it. Run inside and get my family? He also remembered the sound of ambulances. What if Id been outside, washing my car, instead of inside, in the back bedroom, watching a tennis match? Ivan Medina asks himself again and again. You want to enjoy every day because theres no guarantee that tomorrow will come, Neally said. His wifes death is still mentioned by several families in the neighborhood as one of their most heartbreaking losses. Two or three times a month, Sue Nelson digs out newspaper stories of the crash and her parents videotapes of television newscasts. William Kramer was flying that day. Medina helped the Neally family climb into his yard. One of the final lawsuits stemming from the crash was settled last fall when a federal judge awarded $2.9 million to the family of the jetliners pilot. Did they feel the collision? Thats where it happened. Barry Schiff, a Trans World Airlines captain, said pilots are even more taciturn. In a way, I envy Robbie, because he saw it. The crash, caused when a single-engine Piper Cherokee struck the DC-9 as the jet approached Los Angeles International Airport, killed 15 people in four homes, all 64 aboard the jetliner and all. Nearby, surrounded by bags of concrete and wheelbarrows, workmen are applying finishing touches such as garage-door trim to two houses on Holmes and Reva Circle, fitting windows into the completed frame of another home and hammering the last rolls of tar paper over the frame of a fourth. For more information, please call the City's Community Participation Division at (562) 865-8101. Neally ran inside, screaming for his family, not realizing that they were in the backyard. Unlike war veterans, the people of Cerritos were not expecting to be attacked. And a reader from Lakewood who really, really, really likes to smoke weed and who was proud way beyond reason to have attended Lakewood High School, responded to a column we wrote about high school in the olden days, which to him were in 1972, when you could buy an ounce of Mexican marijuana for $10, and a little better grade of Mexican for $15, or, you could get the best, Acapulco Gold and Panama Red for $30 an ounce., Mr. Lakewood goes on to say that the 1972 good stuff was WAY better than anything grown today.. He was on scene within the first 30 or 40 minutes. After 90 minutes, her aunt drove her to Cerritos. Jeffrey McIllwain wrote five letters to the little girl in the hospital. Almost a year after the Cerritos crash, a Northwest Airlines plane plunged to the ground as it took off from the Detroit airport. Its also the loss of a place and possessions, of roots, of having to live through a cliche so easily spoken but rarely experienced: lost everything. Together, the eight pushed through the lath fence on the other end of Medinas yard, into the next home. Please come.. (File photo.). .. You couldnt have taken a saw and cut a neater hole. The Knabes and the McIllwains traveled together on vacations. The leadership role and also knowing so closely somebody who didnt make it out.. Koepke was in the heat of the disaster, where residents had been incinerated in their homes and houses were blazing, fully involved. Los Angeles. News footage from August 31, 1986 about the Aeromexico DC-9 airplane that crashed in Cerritos, California. She decided to leave Cerritos when the boys finished school in June. We feel bad whenever theres a school function, one woman said. The crash of Aeromexico Flight 498 killed 82 people: 64 jetliner passengers, 15 people on the ground and three in the small plane that collided with the jet as it approached Los Angeles International Airport. I stared at that hole, and for a lot of nights after that, I dreamed about that hole.. I see the flashes. The device, called TCAS-2 (Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System), was ordered into airliners after the Cerritos crash. At 11:52 a.m. on Aug. 31, 1986, while McIllwain was still at Sunday school, an Aeromexico DC-9 on approach to Los Angeles International Airport from Mexico collided with a small plane and slammed into the boys neighborhood. When he returned home, he got a call about the plane crash. Don Koepke was wrapping up services at St. John Lutheran Church when an usher came forward with a note from Sue Nelson, then a member of his congregation who lived in the neighborhood. A black path runs through the Cerritos, Calif., neighborhood in this August 31, 1986 file photo, after a midair collision between an AeroMexico DC-9 and a small twin-engine plane. They kept looking for people, he said. Then he softened his voice. But it has been worse. They have to integrate it into their life.. Wednesday marked the 30th anniversary of one of Southern Californias most devastating air disasters. As the years go by, McIllwain realizes the little ways in which the crash has changed his life. Because of the death and destruction, it was probably the biggest incident that Ive handled, Clark said. The survivors figured August would be a difficult month because of extensive publicity about the anniversary. Bob Kirkpatrick, a computer programmer in Spokane, Wash., said in an interview tonight that the dead pilot was his father-in-law, William C. Kramer, a 56-year-old retired executive with the Kaiser . But all of a sudden this secure place is invaded. We spent our whole lives getting here and now an airplane drops from the skies and no place is safe. . Until the accident, it was something she never did. Her seat had cut that hole. Never had so many been killed on the ground as the result of an airline crash in the United States. . Many survivors still wobble. No sleeping required. On August 31, 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 was clipped by a small plane over Cerritos. No one knew. On August 31, 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 was clipped by a small plane over Cerritos. She made a telephone call to her office and returned to tell Estrada that the Cerritos City Council had voted to allocate $25,900 of the citys crash-victims fund to Alejandro and Frank Jr. David Lindley, guitarist best known for work with Jackson Browne, dies at 78, K-Pop isnt the only hot ticket in Koreatown how trot is captivating immigrants, Los Angeles is suddenly awash in waterfalls, Officials unprepared for epic mountain blizzard, leaving many trapped and desperate, The Week in Photos: California exits pandemic emergency amid a winter landscape, Snowboarder dies at South Lake Tahoe resort. There were a lot of people walking around with body bags looking for parts of people.. Long after the funerals and the insurance payoffs and the title transfers and the first Christmases have been endured, a feeling of incompleteness still plagues the survivors. On Aug. 31, 1986, Aeromexico Flight 498, a Douglas DC-9, flying from Mexico City to Los Angeles International Airport, collided with a Piper PA-28 Archer over Cerritos. My oldest daughter was 16 or 17 when the crash happened. The views expressed here are the author's own. Both planes crashed to the ground, killing everyone aboard. On March 21, 2022, the Boeing 737-800 B-1791 of China Eastern Airlines Yunnan Co., Ltd. was carrying out the MU5735 Kunming-Guangzhou flight. Using a table they climbed the fence into the Fullers backyard. Tim Grobaty began his career at the Press-Telegram in 1976 as a copy boy and has held several positions at the paper including feature writer, music critic, TV critic, copy editor and, since 1991, daily columnist. We moved back, but for me that just made it worse, Estrada said. 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I had 16 years with one of the best mothers anybody could ever have had--granted I wanted 80 more years with her, he says, his dark eyes moist. On Aug. 31, 1986, the then sleepy suburban town of Cerritos was faced with unfathomable tragedy when a commercial aircraft collided with a small plane directly over the city. On the 25th anniversary of the Cerritos Air Disaster last year, the city of Cerritos held a special ceremony honoring the lives of those who perished as a result of the plane crash, drawing hundreds of community members from the Southland as well families and friends of the deceased victims. Its natural. The flight data recorder was recovered Monday in the rubble of a house that was destroyed when the jet collided in midair with a small plane. I guess these are the little human stories that no one really cares about except those of us who lived them.. It was an issue of dealing with the community, the pain and sorrow of those who survived, the neighborhood, the whole city.. She cannot explain her hunger. . 82 people total lost their lives, including 64 on the DC-9, 3 on the small plane and 15 on the ground. It was more than twice the size of any other grant made from the fund. Los Angeles. Wes Neally had been standing in his swim trunks next to the garage refrigerator when the plane crashed. The small plane, a single-engine Piper Cherokee, had spiraled down into the yard of Cerritos Elementary School, witnesses said. Usually, she has coffee with them every Friday morning. As it was, Medina, his wife, their 3-year-old son and a niece escaped the terrible flames and explosions that consumed their house and everything they owned. 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From this tragedy, the entire aviation industry changed. No one wanted that. In addition to the 67 people killed in the two planes, 15 Cerritos residents died amid the flaming wreckage and burning jet fuel that destroyed at least eight homes. The pastor recalls ambulance and paramedics racing around but ultimately with nothing to do. Two people were seen inside the plane, decapitated and still strapped into their seats. I see the change at work, where hes supposed to negotiate the highest possible price for car deals. If it was a car crash, or cancer, youd know how they died, said Guzman, a 33-year-old beauty salon owner who puts much of her spare time into phoning relatives of air crash victims throughout the country and who recently leased a building to establish a counseling center for relatives and friends of people who die in airplane accidents. Each article contained horrifying descriptions of the event and heartbreaking quotes from the Cerritos locals that lived through the devastation. I was working the radio that was responsible for sending units into the area.. The scene to this day that bothers me the most--and Im starting to think of it more, now, with the anniversary coming up--was the (lowered) garage door with a perfectly square hole in it, Anderson said. He found comfort in carrying out his mothers dream. He is the author of four books, most recently a memoir/collection I'm Dyin' Here. At night, when the house is dark, Ill remember what I could see from our garage when the plane hit, said Neally, a 40-year-old Los Angeles County weights-and-measures inspector. Another son, Frank Jr., now 19, was away water-skiing. That sound and the smell of jet fuel burning, and how everything got black and dark.. The Federal Aviation Administration has tightened air space restrictions around LAX and other major airports. The FAA now requires all small planes using airspace around the nations busiest airports to carry Mode C transponders, instruments that broadcast altitudes to air traffic controllers. Cerritos residents also formed a group that offered support for Loreto, including equipment for its hospital. I start thinking about that and I start scaring myself, Neally said. Her 8-year-old son, Robbie, who had watched the Aeromexico plane spiral down as he stood in his front yard, overheard her. It took a good 18 months before things were normal until we stopped getting the looky-loos, until people stopped stopping by, Grossman said. Dave Clark, a retired CHP dispatcher who handled emergency calls that day, said that in his 40-year career as a dispatcher, the Cerritos plane crash stands out. At the disaster headquarters, he pitched an emotional appeal to a TV anchorman that was captured live: Linda, if you are out there, call me, he said to the camera. Scattered in between the work are four vacant lots. He saw Theresa Estrada, who had just come back from the grocery store when she saw the plane hit her house, killing her husband, Frank; her 16-year-old son, Javier; and her 14-year-old daughter, Anjelica. Medina, a 42-year-old auto agency finance manager, used to live in one of the 10 homes that were obliterated in the seconds after Aeromexico Flight 498 plowed into an attractive, upper-middle-class neighborhood in Cerritos at 11:52 a.m. on Aug. 31, 1986. Dec. 14, 1988 12 AM PT. Some residents were in church, some were shopping for groceries for backyard barbecues. I saw smoke and I thought our new post office was on fire because that was just south of where the plane went down, he said. Yet, somehow, a city that had never dealt with a tragedy of this magnitude managed to come together. She did not know where to go. In Cerritos, the emotional wounds from the crash took time to heal. Only one family that lost a relative remains in the neighborhood: the McIllwains, who rebuilt their home. I knocked on the door and they let me through, he said. The wall to Carmenita was still too high. Seat belts dangled from charred tree branches. The Crash site is bounded by Artesia Blvd. . I know now that any anxiety I feel in the next two weeks, well, there will be feeling there, because I feel sorry for a whole lot of people--not only the victims who died, but a lot of very, very nice people who suffered greatly and probably still are suffering today. The Piper crashed in a playing field at Cerritos Elementary School, a quarter-mile from the main crash site. An unidentified woman clutches family members Monday, August 31, 1987 as they pause by a chain-link fence surrounding a home under construction in Cerritos, Calif., at the site of the fatal crash involving an Aeromexico jetliner and a small plane. Neallys family has new furniture, new clothes, new cars--so much new stuff they sometimes feel guilty--but none of it can overcome the lingering dread. Yeah, you kind of make sure you see that plane go over and it makes that turn towards LAX.. Using a table, they climbed over their backyard brick wall, hopscotching flames, joining other neighbors in a frantic escape. A month later, Sue Nelson was talking about a cruise the family would take in several years. 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Its from Suzanne Nelson, who lived, with her husband and two small sons, on Ashworth Place, right next door to the house that was hit by the Aeromexco DC-9 just before noon on Aug. 31, 1986. . With each educational laurel, he thinks of how pleased his mother would be. Did they die immediately? The explosion scattered the DC-9's wreckage across Holmes Avenue and onto Carmenita Road, destroying four other houses and damaging seven more. Through sheer chance, the plane landed most directly on homes that were rented by people who had not been in the neighborhood long--the Estrada family, the families of Rickard and Cronkhite and the extended American Indian family of Howard Yackytooahnipah, which lost six members. * Handles all high-altitude traffic in Southern California. . You dont seem moved, the reporter said. . On Aug. 31, 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9, Flight 498, collided with a single-engine Piper Archer at 6,500 feet above the Cerritos neighborhood near Ashworth and Carmenita Road. And she started to cry.. The only longtime homeowner who died was Linda McIllwain, who lived on Reva Circle with her husband, Dennis, and their son and daughter, Jeff and Debbie. In her decade-long career, she has reported how gentrification has affected downtown Santa Ana, how racism contributes the high black infant death rate, and how President Donald Trump is impacting undocumented communities across Southern California. Jeffrey McIllwain found consolation in the kindness of friends and neighbors, the people who brought home-cooked meals or told him stories: how his mother had comforted kids whose parents were undergoing divorce, how she had offered everyone rides from school to home, even boys she knew had joined a gang. There was no book on it. I cant get over how in a tiny fraction of a second we were spared.. And every tragedy, such as the recent Olympics bombing and the explosion of a TWA jet over New York, brings a painful jolt of empathy with the victims. 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"I thank the Lord that there's people that still remember them, this is going to be forever this is in our hearts even though life has to move on," said Mary Guzman whose husband and son were aboard the Aermexico jetliner along with five others in her close-knit circle of family and friends. Want to count bighorn sheep in the forest? We had a debriefing, one of the best things our department has ever done, he said. Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe was mayor of Cerritos at the time. The crash of . Koepke, who with Knabe will take part in the ceremony, said that while remembering the day remains difficult for some, its a day that must be acknowledged. Were it not for some scars on the asphalt left by the impact of jet parts, the neighborhood might be mistaken for just another new tract. I used to be a stronger person, said Ivan Medina, who plans to rebuild on Holmes but has yet to get started. The city of Cerritos has healed in the intervening 30 years. In that brief flash of time, the 58 passengers of the. That was not the end of it. In that brief flash of time, the 58 passengers of the Aeromexico jet, its six-person crew and 15 people on the ground were killed. So brutal was the impact that, despite the use of high-tech equipment, the county coroners office was unable to positively identify 12 of the Aeromexico passengers and one of the residents. Their home, where they have lived since 1971, was two-and-a-half houses away from the accident. About 20 houses were either completely or partially destroyed. The note read: Plane hit house. An aerial view of burned out homes is photographed in Cerritos, Calif on Sept. 1, 1986 after an Aeromexico jetliner and a small plane collided in the air. People died. But I had a choice. The Cerritos Air Disaster 25th Anniversary Remembrance is scheduled at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Cerritos Air Disaster Memorial in the Cerritos Sculpture Garden, 18125 Bloomfield Avenue. You always saw Linda there., Ill be driving along, said Cerritos City Councilman Don Knabe, a close friend of the McIllwain family who took in the McIllwains during much of the last year, and then all of a sudden something will flash and Ill see Lindas smiling face.. The crash, caused when a single-engine Piper Cherokee struck the DC-9 as the jet approached Los Angeles International Airport, killed 15 people in four homes, all 64 aboard the jetliner and all three in the Piper. Only they dont have to live with it.. The house was leveled; all that remained was a blackened, smoldering lot. We dont get emotionally involved. It was an improbable, unthinkable tragedy: Planes plunging from blue skies into a quiet, suburban neighborhood, slaughtering people in their homes, showering body parts everywhere. But the potential for that accident to happen exists every day, and you dont want to think about it., Nonetheless, Grundmann said, when hes working on a Sunday, and he happens to look out over the traffic control sector in which Aeromexico was flying that day, I still think about it.. Heres an excerpt from his article, which appeared in the Sept. 1, 1986, Times: The crash occurred at 11:55 a.m., and authorities identified the downed airliner as Aeromexico Flight 498, which was about to land at Los Angeles International Airport after a flight from Mexico City with stops in Guadalajara, Loreto and Tijuana. About 20 houses were either completely or partially destroyed. Jeffrey left the car and walked in. By that time, (my wife) Julie had turned on the TV and she started screaming, because she recognized the area and some of our friends homes, Knabe said. Nor can she get over how, perhaps 50 feet closer to the impact point, the family of Frank and Theresa Estrada was not spared. . I heard the thrust reversals, the pilot instinctively trying to slow the plane. For two solid weeks, the Red Cross and local restaurants helped to provide meals for the survivors. Almost a year after the Cerritos crash, a Northwest Airlines plane plunged to the ground as it took off from the Detroit airport. All 67 people on the planes and 15 people on the ground died. Yet probably a day doesnt go by when you dont think about it. Los Angeles Times staff writer Ted Thackrey Jr. reported immediately after the disaster.