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You dont want to see those anymore. On August 31, 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 was clipped by a small plane over Cerritos. Among those who didnt was Theresa Estrada, who was returning from a grocery store when she saw the plane crash into her house, killing her husband, Frank, and her children, Javier, 16, and Anjelica, 14. I was working the radio that was responsible for sending units into the area.. See More Details (1) Remove Ads. Nelson didnt write the letter for publication. Another woman telephoned a restaurant to make a reservation and, upon giving her distinctive last name, heard the maitre d ask whether she was the one who had family on the jet. Looking down Carmenita, you could see the fuselage sticking out onto the sidewalk and part of the street, he said. . Thats as close as anyone has come to understanding, Wes Neally said. It happened. . A few minutes after that, the plane fell. We saw people in their closets that couldnt understand why they were saved and their neighbors houses blew up with the airplane, Knabe said. 82 people total lost their lives, including 64. Aug. 31, 1986: A deputy stands amid debris on Holmes Avenue after the jetliner crash in Cerritos. She did not know where to go. 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. We had so much food we didnt know what to do with it, Grossman said. A resident has added "Lookie Lou's Go Home" message to a "Local Traffic Only" sign Wednesday, September 3, 1986 in Cerritos, Calif., near the area where an Aeromexico Jetliner plunged to the ground after colliding with a small plane. After talking to counselors and to each other, we decided it was not a good idea to move back into the area that we were fighting for our lives to get out of, said Wes Neally, who was badly burned by the time he, his wife, their then 8-year-old daughter Reanna and her friend Diane escaped. He tried to tell me that a plane had tried to land next door.. The photos shown here are a collection of the chilling newspaper headlines that followed in the days after the crash. I grabbed a ladder and went over the fence and suddenly realized where I was.. Almost a year after the Cerritos crash, a Northwest Airlines plane plunged to the ground as it took off from the Detroit airport. in the north, South St. in the south, Bloomfield Ave. in the west and Marquardt Ave. in the east. The ceremony will be held at the Cerritos Air Disaster Memorial in the Cerritos Sculpture Garden which is located in the Civic Center. 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We will include here a bit of what she recalled from those initial moments of terror: My son Robbie (7 at the time) was standing in the garage and watched as the DC-9 plowed into the ground merely yards away. The smoke and all that was so thick that you couldnt even breathe down at that end of the block.. . We didnt know until we ran out the house and saw what happened.. The concept of providing mental health to victims and first responders is now applied nationally. "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. They rented another house several blocks away from their old one, but their trips often took them down another part of their old street. He lights a cigarette--a habit hes fallen back into after 17 years of abstaining--and compulsively checks the house for escape routes. At first, he was overly protective of family members and friends, trying to make sure that everyone was safe. You couldnt have taken a saw and cut a neater hole. Today, Neally, a Los Angeles County weights and measures inspector, lives with his family in Yorba Linda, 15 miles east of the home where they lived 15 years. In a way, I envy Robbie, because he saw it. Its a picture as iconic of the disaster as the Falling Man image is of 9/11. Until the accident, it was something she never did. In Cerritos, the emotional wounds from the crash took time to heal. . The damaged jet lost control and crashed into a quiet neighborhood just before noon. Get up to speed with our Essential California newsletter, sent six days a week. Privately, he was crushed. The pain transcends news reports. The FAA said it counted only those incidents in which one or both planes were observed by air traffic controllers. CBS2's Dave Lopez, who covered the tragedy that day, takes a look back at the disaster. Its the little stuff, too. Seat belts dangled from charred tree branches. In Los Angeles, where there are 8,000 takeoffs and landings each day, there were 51 of these incidents between Aug. 1, 1986, and July 31, 1987, contrasted with only 14 in the previous year. As for the neighbors who lived through the tragedy, many of them moved away. It didnt work. Some residents were in church, some were shopping for groceries for backyard barbecues. Nearby Hotels. She was expecting a pension from her husbands employer, but it was held up. When youre sick, I dont care how sick, when you go home youll feel better. It was like a battlefield, he said. Ive come to the conclusion there was a God up there, but he wasnt picking or choosing, she said, sounding at peace with her answer. Encountering friends and former neighbors was wrenching. As they helped their neighbors, she remembered the crackling of fire and the screaming of people running out of their houses. Then, I saw the jet nose sticking out of a wall on Carmenita Road. 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.. Their terror had to be a hundred times worse than ours, Wes Neally said. Totally destroyed.. One of the most significant changes was the installation of a new anti-collision instrument in jetliners. Thats how many people described the day up until 11:56 a.m.: quiet. You dont seem moved, the reporter said. But when something like this happens to your house, with you in it, you lose all sense of security.. Those who lived through it 25 years ago recently reflected on the tragedy that changed this city. . 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Dont let it bother you. The Crash site is bounded by Artesia Blvd. The number of fatalities fluctuated as the wreckage was cleared, but in the end, the accident killed a total of 82 people, including everyone on both aircrafts and 15 people on the ground. Its not merely the loss of kin or friends. 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. We cant even tell the difference anymore. Medina helped the Neally family climb into his yard. On Wednesday, the community will remember the victims and their families in a ceremony at the memorial in the Cerritos Sculpture Garden. I knocked on the door and they let me through, he said. She headed for the neighborhood, turned a corner and found . A bouquet of roses stand next to the names at the base of the memorial of those who died at 11:52 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31, 1986, on flight 498, at the 25 year memorial Wednesday, at the Cerritos Sculpture Garden in Cerritos. She wasnt talking at all, only groaning and rocking back and forth, he said. It was right at the end of the 11 oclock service, and the usher came forward with a note that a woman had called and said a house was on fire and to please come, Koepke said. Everything in the kitchen got dark because it went right over the house and blocked off the sun, she recalled. There is general agreement that since the crash pilots have been more inclined to file reports. The body of a victim in a plane crash between an Aero Mexico jetliner and a small plane is taken from neighborhood in Cerritos, Calif., Monday morning, September 1, 1986. His mother, Linda, 37, told him to take her baby blue Oldsmobile instead of his blue Volkswagen beetle, which was low on gas. Los Angeles. We were like three lost souls, she said. 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. Otherwise, it could drive you nuts real quick.. Watching the skies is something Grossman will always do, because on a Sunday afternoon 25 years ago one airplane didnt make it to Los Angeles International Airport. Another son, Frank Jr., now 19, was away water-skiing. 82 people total lost their lives, including 64 on the DC-9, 3 on the small plane and 15 on the ground. They pushed through a lath fence into Ivan Medinas backyard. I sat next to her and all I said, if I remember, is This is a terrible thing, and she let out a cry like I never heard before, then she just started sobbing. What remains unsettled, and in many cases deeply hidden, are the emotional consequences. It took different lengths of time for different people, Ray said. As the citys mayor at the time of the crash, he had to uphold a strong, optimistic public image and quickly plunge into hundreds of logistical details for the neighborhoods recovery. Never had so many been killed on the ground as the result of an airline crash in the United States. For the first five years, every year on the anniversary youd have people stopping by and leaving flowers on the curbs and stuff like that.. He stayed with her for more than an hour, talking to her and praying with her. Maybe Billings is right. Barry Schiff, a Trans World Airlines captain, said pilots are even more taciturn. Its natural. Two planes a jetliner and small single-engine aircraft collided over Cerritos. Its not an easy thing, but its an important thing, he said. But things were far from normal. And she started to cry.. If someones talking about Aeromexico, that subject gets changed real quick, said Grundmann, who was on duty when Walter White, the controller responsible for guiding Flight 498 into LAX, turned to a supervisor and calmly reported, Russ, I think Ive just lost an airplane., Its something that happened. Naturally, we wouldve liked to have spoken with Nelson and her family, and were sorry that we didnt. Andy, who is 39, is an attorney at Apple in Cupertino, and Rob edits movie trailers in Sherman Oaks. But money is not important to me. Have a nice time, she said as she came out to the porch in herhousedress. For Lt. John Anderson, commander of a Los Angeles County sheriffs detachment deployed in the neighborhood a few minutes after the crash, there are images that still wont fade. In California during the last year there have been eight midair collisions, killing seven and injuring three. A breakdown of midair collisions in the United States during the 12-month periods before and after the Cerritos crash: Total Producing Total Total Year Collisions Fatalities Deaths Injuries 85-86 27 16 42 30 86-87 26 13 48 8. 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. Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe was mayor of Cerritos at the time. He immediately jumped into his car and drove to the site. Neally ran inside, screaming for his family, not realizing that they were in the backyard. 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. Nor can she get over how, perhaps 50 feet closer to the impact point, the family of Frank and Theresa Estrada was not spared. Both planes crashed to the ground, killing everyone aboard. As a minister who is close to the family put it, I have walked through many valleys with people, but never have I walked through anything that is so tragic., The heartache is always there, the loneliness is always there. On August 31, 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 was clipped by a small plane over Cerritos. 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. But after his alarm rang at 9:30 a.m., he changed his mind, jumped into khaki jeans and a cream-colored button-down shirt and headed for church. Fullerton, California. She was still waving as he pulled out of the driveway, Jeffrey remembers. On August 31, 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 was clipped by a small plane over Cerritos. Finally, she returned to Chula Vista and, with her parents, rented a two-story town house in an attractive housing development. Numerous residents declined to be interviewed. The sculpture bears the names of all of the victims. It took a good 18 months before things were normal until we stopped getting the looky-loos, until people stopped stopping by, Grossman said. It really hit home. 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. It was the hellishness of fire and debris tearing off the roof of the two-story home, of scurrying around, looking for his family, of wearing only swimming trunks and being scorched by burning jet fuel from the air, of looking down and seeing his arm on fire--burns that would cost him seven weeks of work. Cronkhite and her husband were helping them. There were body parts, a very, very horrific scene. Almost a year after the Cerritos crash, a Northwest Airlines plane plunged to the ground as it took off from the Detroit airport. On roofs and in flower beds, rescue workers gingerly placed the remains of passengers in bright yellow body bags. They, too, were stuck. Its the voice thats not there; the laughter thats not there. McIllwain--a high school senior at the time of the Aeromexico crash--attended USC, where he graduated with honors and went on to earn two graduate degrees at other universities. But it has been worse. 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. But for the people who were closest to the crash, by geography or family, life has been robbed of much of its balance. Miraculously, it spared Angelicias twin brother, Alejandro, who somehow pushed through the rubble that fell on top of him. 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. Except here the scars are harder to see--and much deeper. You sit there and you say to yourself, Im not going to say anything, cause Im OK. Then you hear the guy next to you saying, I havent slept for three days. And you all begin to realize, Them, too. What you get out of it is you realize that its OK to feel this way. Slowly, they realized she had seen a newscast about an airliner that had crashed on a Mexico City freeway that week, killing 54 people. 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. I was at the site within 30 or 45 minutes, and it was like going into a war zone. 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. (File photo.). The Crash site is bounded by Artesia Blvd. She was in her house eating Cheese Whiz nachos and her 7-year-old son, Robbie, was outside with his dog Peach when the Aeromexico plane spiraled to the ground. A few minutes later, from his garage, Neally noticed the kids and one of the mothers, relaxing with a soft drink. Usually, she has coffee with them every Friday morning. It was a cousin. Wheelchair Accessible. . What the first initial thought was, we didnt know.