Now that was a bad day

Joe,
I found out about this crash about a month after I moved into my new house… about two blocks away from the crash site. If you visit it now, you can see the houses that have been rebuilt and don’t quite match up with the others. Pretty scary.

I was a member of a bereaved parents group back in the late ’70s. One of the members lost his son on that flight.
He lost a second son in another mid-air collision a few years later over Belle Isle in the Detroit River. He was a chopper pilot for the Detroit Police. Imagine the odds of losing two sons in mid-air collisions.

My friend and one-time colleague, Nellie Jackson, was on that flight, leaving her teenaged daughter surviving her. Nellie flew PSA182 SMF - LAX - SAN routinely, to work. My cousin Flint died on LANSA flight (9 Aug 1970) departing Cuzco, Perú, overloaded, poorly maintained and badly flown when an engine was lost on takeoff, for Lima. Two for nothing, pilot errors; 241 more lives lost.

My sister, Maureen and her 8 year old son Jimmy were on that flight. They left behind a 3 yr old daughter//sister Jennifer and Maureen’s new husband James Gallagher in Bakersfield. Avery tragic day for our family. My Dad and Maureen weren’t speaking because she had divorced - he never got a chance to make up for that.

i was an 18 year old marine recruit at the sandiego recruit depot sitting on the obstacle course looking directly in the air at the 2 planes as they collided and exploded into a ball of flames and crashed into the homes on the hill over looking the base. there was absolutely nothing i could do to stop it or worse to help anyone involved. the drill instructors made us go directly into the squad bay and keep busy squaring away our gear.we thought we were going to have to go help the rescue squads or something but we never got the chance and had to read about it in the sunday paper. i still can see it in my mind as if it happened yesterday. i am now married and have a teenage daughter it is definately the worst thing i have ever seen. i wish that i could get in touch with anyone that was at the marine or navy base that day in 1978. if you know anyone please have them contact me at c.wangler@mchsi.com or send a letter to terry wangler 3215-18th ave. moline illinois 61265 thanks and god bless.

I was 14 watchin my dad work at a local firestone store. I heard the explosion muffled and everyone was running into the street. We saw the debris from the cessna floating like tinsel from the sky and we had no idea what had happened until we heard it on the radio over the next few days. It was quite a month after the crash seeing the footage of north park on the local news. I remember this as part of my memories as a kid growing up. Prayers for those who lost their lives that day. And for those they left behind. Brian

I in the Navy on a westpac out of San Diego at the time. I didn’t have any realatives in San Diego but alot of the other guys did. Things were really tense for a long time and the Navy kept us updated on the situation. No one from my ship lost anyone thankfully.

I was stationed at Fighter Town at the time.

I still have, on cassette, a news bulletin broadcast on a San Diego radio station about efforts for blood donations and other information, that I recorded at the time.

On that day I was with the rest of our Recruit Series at MCRD San Diego when one of the recruits yelled out, “look that plane is going down.”

On my way home that evening (vicinity of 50th and University, a flurry of activity was ongoing up and down University Ave.

I had just gotten out of the navy the day before the flight accident. My wife and i lived at Illinoise street in a apartment. We were crossing the desert that night because of heat . the next mourning my wife was frantic calling her friends who lived in the apartment complex alas the phone lines were out.I cant tell you how many times I thoght of those people…. . we never did make contact.

So many wonderful people were lost on that flight including a sweetheart of a woman I was dating Flight Attendant Gail Shapiro.. It was not supposed to be her flight that day but her roomie caught a bug so Gail took her flight..I still have a place in my heart for Gail….God bless All

I was a PSA employee at the time of the crash. I was stationed on the ground at LAX. I had my $1.00 one way ticket for that flight to visit my best friend who lived in Imperial Beach. I went down there almost every week, since I could fly for $2.00 roundtrip! I went out with my future husband on our first date on the night before the flight. I was sick with bronchitis and decided at the last minute that I wasn’t up for the trip that week. I have been traumatized for life over this crash. I should have been on that plane. Many co-workers and even my boss Bob Benner and his wife were on the flight. Such a devastating loss. My life was forever changed that very day.
I think of how very lucky I was that day to be sick! I have a sever fear of flying to this day. I have flown recently, but it never gets any eaiser.

i was 6 years old at the time. i was staying with a friend on dwight st (about 2-3 blocks from point of impact). we were swinging on a tire swing in the backyard when we heard what sounded like a firecracker followed by an explosion. its difficult to describe what i felt. the only thing i can relate it to is taking off in an airplane…heh…just incredibly powerful. my friend’s mom came running into the yard to pull us inside. the alley behind the house filled with thick black smoke. the smell was horrible, like burning plastic, hot metal and fuel. i remember seeing a piece of what must have been a seat in the airplane with the upholstery partially melted off. it looked like skin. I still remember the neighbors screaming, the sirens, the smoke, the incredible heat, my friend’s dad speaking of “pieces of bodies on the street”. the evening was spent candlelit in the living room next to the radio. i have been in airplanes since then, but its always a guaranteed panic attack. sometimes i am still unable to actually get on the plane. i still see that melted seat, so out of place, sitting on the sidewalk of dwight st.

My dad Amancio Elizaga Jr. was a flight attendant on that flight 28 years ago. I did not know him, I was only 5 months old. I think of him often. I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten over his tragic death. He was so young with his whole life ahead of him, he left on this earth his wife, my mom (Aleta), my sister Amanda (not yet 2 years old at the time), and me and countless friends and relatives.

I had caught a couple of hours sleep in the back after working a grave shift at the 7-11 at Princess View and Mission Gorge Road. When I came out front Rick said, “A PSA jet just went down over North Park.” I went outside and the smoke plume was visible, rising over what from our vantage point was the plateau of North Park.

About one hour later a PSA flight attendant ( I think we still called them stewardesses in those days ) came into our store. It was so strange that this would happen on this particular morning. Rick and I looked at each other, then looked down. The young woman came up to the counter and purchased a couple of items. No one said a word. . . we barely made eye contact. It was so unspeakably sad, more so I think because San Diego was, in those days, so much smaller.

The whole city was in mourning. It seemed to me that all of that day was hushed. PSA had been just a huge part of San Diego, and all of those lives lost, both in the air and on the ground.

In the evening I went out to eat. It was so quiet. This wasn’t just my perception, it really was very quiet in the restaurant, everyone silent or speaking in hushed voices.

It really was like a little piece of all of us died that day. . .that’s the only way I can describe it. When something happens right there; right in your city. I think it helped me understand the reaction of the New Yorkers to 9/11.

I was named after Andrew Martin, the owner and pilot of the cessna which collided with the PSA. He was flying to San Diego to meet with my father and address a board meeting on that tragic day. My father was at the office waiting for him to call from Brown Field Airport, and found it unlike Andy to be late. He then called my godmother at their home in Malibu to confirm his flight schedule, at that moment he heard on the radio, two planes collided and crashed over North Park. There was dead silence over the phone and denial that he was dead.

Andy Martin is survived by his wife, two beautiful children, and godson. His loss devestates us to this day. He is in our thoughts and prayers.

I had recently moved to Spring Valley from the Los Angeles area. I was actually getting ready to make a trip back up to LA. My house had a panoramic view of the city to the west from a hill. I had just walked out to my car to load up a couple of things and looked out over the horizon. I saw an incredible mushroom cloud of black smoke - just like a bomb had gone off, and the mushroom was still rising. I could not believe my eyes. Of course from that distance I did not see anything but the smoke, but it was clear that something horrible had happened. I immediately turned on the radio and heard what had happened. I remember the staging area at St. Augustine’s. I remember feeling terrible helpless and not knowing what to do. It was something I never will forget. I remember later an acquaintence I had at the time told me she had been driving through North Park when it happened. She said she ran a stop light accidentally, and that if she had not done that she would have been killed for sure because the jet went down behind her. I can’t even imagine that. It was a horrible day for all San Diegans.

i was in the 7th grade and it was over 100 degees outside and the school let everyone out because of the extreme heat (of course for san diego that is). at that time is when the planes went down, seeinng that i lived about 10 mins drive time away from there and that my step dads family lived in that area i still to this day (11-30-2006) cant get it out of my mind. have also never seen before or after clean up of the site of impact.

The crash happened a day before my birthday. I was in the 7th grade and we were having half days from school because of the heat. Hoover High was being used a a morgue and that crahs changed North Park forever.

I have lived in this county for most of my life, but was only 3 years old and not living in the county at the time of this crash. I don’t know why, but I’ve been obsessing over this flight for a few weeks now. I live in Normal Hts., almost exactly under where the collision occurred. I have since read everything there is to read about this flight. I even visited the corner of Nile and Dwight. There is an empty lot just south on Nile (near Dwight and the 805). I wonder if that was where the plane impacted first. Newer pearly-white (eerie) buildings now occupy the impact area. The houses in that neighborhood were built in the 20s and 30s so it is easy to see the trajectory.
It is obvious that the pilots had lost their fear of flying by the CVRs. Pilots should always have some small fear of flying in them so that they will be extra cautious when necessary. You never think it’s gonna happen though. None of us do. They took the whereabouts of the Cessna much too lightly. Aside from the fault of the PSA crew, that Cessna should not have been able to fly anywhere near the commercial routes. What a mistake. Now I have to be freaked out when I look at the faces on the flight 182 memorial page. People forever stuck in their 1970s styles, most of them in their youth. It was an attractive goup of people, including some women who appear to be knock-outs: A Lisa Davis, a Karen Borzewski, a Gayle Shapiro, and a Dee Young. Very sad. Even 29 years later. Maybe it’s especially sad because it was so long ago, because people forget. May they rest in peace and may their friends and relatives be comforted. I think that the only thing that we can take solace in here is that they only had about 10 seconds of fear, maybe even less before the impact. Perhaps some thought they were merely going in for an emergency landing, and hence, never felt any fear.

This plane crash is a vivid childhood memory of mine and I recall that day often, even today. It holds a special distinction in my mind as being the very first event I truly remember clearly, in my life… I was 4 1/2 years old, and while nearly all events of that time have long since faded, the day a passenger jet fell from the sky and exploded 6 blocks away from my pre-school playground remains lucid. Us kids were standing on the blacktop at the YMCA on Landis and the old 15/805 merge, in the canyon to the east of the impact site. There was a very loud collision overhead, causing all of us outside to look up, only to see the plane with its wing on fire falling to earth, and the enourmous black cloud that appeared therafter. I can remember my parents being quite distraught as we went home early from school that day. Later on, my mom gave me colored pencils and told me to draw what I had seen. To this day she still has those drawings of burning planes and a 4 year old’s rendition of bodies and mass casualties. For some reason I dont know, all the people in the drawings are smiling, yet laying on the ground amidst fire and smoke and wreckage. We still have the news clippings from the Tribune, as well as the follow up story years later about the Hans Wendt and his experience then and since. I spent the next 7 or 8 years living there and watched that very location heal itself as I grew up. While that was as bad of day as any neighborhood could have, and while I could not grasp the gravity of the situation at the time, I feel very fortunate to have grown up in that exact location, and it will hold a special place in my heart forever.

why build houses where is the site of the crash… to me the best solution could be build a monument… we musn’t forget this day… okay now I live in France but it’s not a reason…

but the most important thing it’s don’t forget them…

We were among first p.d. units on scene,still see it in my head. Later in the afternoon had to stop a man &wife,2 kids with lunch basket “going to see crash”. lucky for the kids they didn’t get to see it.

I attended an FAA “Wings” seminar yesterday and one of the speakers was Wally Funk, one of NASA’s Mercury 13 women. After NASA refused to let her go into space, she became an accident investigator for the NTSB and in yesterday’s presentation, she touched on the fact that she was the first, and for two or three days the ONLY, NTSB investigator on the scene of the PSA/C-172 crash.

I had gone to hear about astronaut training from a women’s perspective, but once she mentioned the San Diego crash, all I could do was to think about that Boeing 727 running into the 172.

I was an Air Traffic Controller at the time of the crash, working in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I remember the knee-jerk reactions of the Press and the U.S. Congress. There were immediate, and not very well thought-out, plans to create Terminal Control Areas in all San Diego (and Tulsa) sized areas to make sure that all planes when flying in the vicinity of the airports associated with such cities were in direct contact with Air Traffic Controllers “…so that this type of accident would never happen again.” The fact that the 727 and the Cessna 172 were both in contact with controllers at the time of the accident seemed to somehow escape the notice of those who were proposing this solution.

What really got to me so many years ago was a “Time” magazine article on the crash. There was a flight instructor on board the Cessna and when he died, he left behind a fiancé, someone I’d known from the previous year when she herself worked as a flight instructor at Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa. In 1977, she had lost her father, an executive with Beechcraft, and now I was reading in that “Time” article that she’d lost her fiancé too. A distant crash suddenly came much closer to home.

Seven years after the crash, no longer an Air Traffic Controller, I was working in Southfield, Michigan with a co-worker who was from the San Diego area. We got to talking about the crash and I learned that he had dated one of the flight attendants on the PSA jet.

It’s funny — I don’t know that I personally know anyone who was directly affected by the Oklahoma City bombing, or by 9-11, but I keep running into people who were very much involved with, or very much affected by the PSA/C-172 crash.

i never heard abot this crash until i was watching faces of death.I wanted to see if this was authentic so i got info from film and looked it up.It was true.It is sad to see all the gruesome pictures on the film.Also sad,is the fact that these terrible things happen quite often.Death is truly a great mystery for the living.None of us know anything about it.To go in a terrible way like that tho,with no warning or notice has to be the worst.

I was 10 years old when this accident happened. I grew up here in San Diego and will never forget how it made me feel. Today, I have never been able to fly without the fear of it happeneing again. My prayers go out to all those who had to say good-by to those they loved.

I was a teenager when flight 182 went down. The impact hit 2 blocks from our home. My family was some of the first on the site to try to help any survivors. I was in high school and I remember our teacher saying, “planes just don’t crash in neighborhoods”. It took eternity to get home that day to see if my family on the ground was still alive. I will never forget the devestation when I walked down the street. Empty city blocks that were once homes where I use to play. My family left the area shortly there after because the memories were too much to bare. We prayed for the people over and over again and we still have trouble comprehending what really happened. I am 44 now and just thinking about this brings it all back. Maybe I will visit the site some day and see the new changes to try to erase the memories of the flat, concrete blocks where the houses use to be. That is what’s burned into my mind. Maybe that will heal my visions. God bless all those that tried to help and those that died on that day.

I was in ninth grade at El Cajon High on that day. I remember the Santa Ana and when the news reached our class room. The teacher announced the accident and then still tried to teach. When class was over I went out to the field to see the smoke but could’nt because of hills in the way. The ensuing news reports did’nt bring the event home as much as seeing the site some months later.

I work at the San Diego Airport,everyday when I drive by the area,I think about that day. We are now coming up to the 29 year. Let’s ALWAYS keep the one’s that where lost that day in our Heart’s. I may have not known anyone that day.

Well, that things happen.

i was 15 at the time and had been let out school because of the heat. Me and some friends were just sitting on a small hill talking and laughing. We were just innocent teenagers and while we were looking up at the sky we saw a distinct black figure which was the PSA plane coming closer and closer to a smaller plane.We were just starig not knowing what was about to happen when all of suden we see flames and the two planes clip eachother. We saw the smal plane head straght down while the bigger plane had flames all over the right wing. We saw as the plane suddenly jerked downward and began its descent towards the neighborhood down below. We heard a very loud BOOM and the plane crashed with flames and ball of fire go straight up. WE screamed and cryed not fully understanding what had just happened when we realized that some of our other friends were living down where the plane crashed seconds ago. I will never forget the sound of that plane crashing.

That day fate found me sitting in my car at the 40th and University Ave. stop light. I had just dropped my then fiance off at work and was headed to my work. When I first saw Flight 182 it was headed east. (downwind) I watched it for a moment as it glistened in the morning sun. I briefly turned my attention back to the street lights. Right then is when I saw the fireball (which turned out to be the Cessna) I sat and watched in shock as the jet went down just a couple of blocks away. I raced to the scene to help in any way I could and wound up helping one homeowner at the initial impact point move his belongings out of his burning house.

When Flight 182 went down there was a song playing on my radio at that very moment… “Reminiscing” by the Little River Band. Whenever I hear that song today I shudder and remember everything I witnessed that fateful day.

I grew up very close to the nieghborhood where this crash occurred. I would take a short cut throught this nieghborhood on a daily basis to visit my friend right around the time this terrible accident happened. I was on my way to my friends house and I recieved a call form my boss that he had my pay check, so I redirected my journey traveling north to the Miramar area noticing a very large fire in my rear view mirror later to find out that a PSA jet had crashed into my old nieghborhood. I have several friends that are fire fighters and were called to the accident. One of my fire fighter friends was going into houses to make sure no one was inside and said he walk into the living room and noticed the stereo system had completly melted down. He said it was an inferno and it looked like war. The other comments he made were to gross to share. It was a terrible day!

I was 18yr at the time. I recall newscasters crying on the air trying to tell what happen. Telling about body parts all over the place. A very sad and shocking day. Even though I grew up in SD, I have never been down that street. I do recall being close by that week to pay respects but could not go down the street.

I don’t know why all of this came to mind today. One of my children asked about planes –out of the blue. Almost 29 yrs later since the accident. I could not recall why PSA went down so looked it up and now the images are once again vivid in my head.

IT WAS TERRIBLE, I DIDNT SEE IT…. I FELT IT, I THOUGHT IT WAS AN EARTHQUAKE AT FIRST,UNTIL I LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW THEN I HEARD HELICOPTERS,SIRENS ETC. I STILL DIDNT REALIZE THAT IT WAS A PLANE CRASH I THOUGHT MAYBE A GAS MAIN HAD BLOWN OR SOMETHING,TIL A NEIGHBOR SAID THAT THERE WAS SOME PEOPLE OVER THERE GETTING CLOTHES AND JEWERLY FROM THE DEAD PEOPLE AND THEIR LUGAGGE/CLOTHING WAS STREWN EVERYWHERE.IT WAS REVOLTING!! I WAS TWO SHORT BLOCKS AWAY FROM THE CRASH AND I THANKED GOD BUT I FELT SO BAD FOR MY NEIGHBORS..BUT WAS SO GLAD IT WAS AFTER MORNING RUSH OR IT WOULD OF BEEN WORSE.THEY BLOCKED OFF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD..AND MY HUSBAND WHO WAS AT WORK CAME RUSHING HOME BUT SINCE WE HAD JUST RECENTLY MOVED HE HAD NO ID TO GET IN AND ENDED UP GETTING IN A FIGHT WITH SOME OFFICER TO GET IN, HE MANAGED TO GET HOME AND WAS RELIEVED TO FIND OUR LITTLE APARTMENT STILL THERE. HE THOUGHT IT HIT US.I STILL THINK OF THAT TERRIBLE DAY AND HOW LUCKY I AM TO BE ALIVE, TO ENJOY MY GRANDKIDS ZOE AND ZAYAH AND NEVER FORGET THAT PSA DAY!

That crashed happened on a Monday. Monday’s and Tuesday’s were my days off. I had just gotten to a nearby grocery store off of University when I heared a loud crinkling sound from above, liek the crushing of al aluminum can. I looked up and there they were, the two planes. The small Cessna was in a free fall like a rock, one of the occupants, partially hanging out of teh crumpled wreckage as it fell. I’ll never forget that scene. Then the impact and explosion of the PSA jet, a huge thunderous explosion and the ground shook.

Myself and a passer-by literaly ran the four or five blocks to the scene to see if we could help. There was intense heat, thick, choking smoke, a sickeningly sweet smell of kerosoene and debris falling everywhere.

We helped an elderly woman from her home, which was just starting to catch fire. A Navy fire engine raced up and soon some police, all less than five minutes after the crash.

I was scared, shocked, winded from the five block run, and just full of adrenaline. Peopel were scurrying baout screaming, crying, frightened. Some were badly injured. We helped a middle-aged man who had a minor head wound from flying debris. He had been in his garage,it turned out, when a smallpiece of debris struck him s it fell through the roof. He was ok ultimately, but scared and in shock.

There were bits and pieces of paper flying about and ripped apart aircraft and bits of human flesh and organs strewn everywhere.

Another man and myself grabbed a garden hose and we were able to save a home that had caught fire alongthe awnings. It had exterior damage from fling debris and some human remains in the yard. We tried not to look. We saw only one, partially dismembered human being, a woman’s body in the grass of the front yard, who had to have known of her fate as the plane plummted as she had clealry urinated and soiled feces into her pantsuit. It was obvious. I retched at the sight of this. And tried not to look back, but she was there for at least an hour before someone finally placed a yellow bag over her. Her eyes were still open, her face contorted in an awkward, fearful stare.

I will never forget that face.

It was a horrid day for all involved.

I was working on the 2nd floor of an office about 2 miles from the crash site. We had routine shipments of sheet metal (2 ton spools) dropped at our place of business. The whole building shakes similar to an abrupt earthquake each time. On Sept. 25th I thought it was just another routine materials delievery, but it was actually the shockwave created by the impact of PSA flight 182.

A classmate of mine from Patrick Henry H.S. (flight attendant for PSA) perished in that crash. Donald St.Germain. My prayers and thoughts go out to the families affected by that horrible day.

It is so amazing that Douglas Arthur and Donald St. Germain, the brothers-in-law from PSA got killed in the Crash. St. Germain means Holy Brother.

PSA went out of business 9 years after Douglas Arthur’s Brother-In-Law Donald St. Germain got killed in the Crash.

PSA didn’t go out of business. They merged with US Air in 1987. They last flew as PSA in April 1988.

My sister was a flight attendant for PSA from Sept. 1975 to June 1987, based in San Diego. She then went to Delta Airlines out of Salt Lake City when she married her husband, a Delta pilot. She was at Delta from August 1987 to Sept. 2001. She is currently with United out of San Francisco and will retire in two years. She knew eleven of the victims of PSA Flight 182, three closely. She still regards PSA as the best and happiest days of her career.

She is known somewhat within the old PSA company/community lore as the flight attendant who was semi-sexually victimized by an intoxicated foot fetish male passenger on a lonely, quiet flight to Puerta Vallarta in August 1980. He apprroached her in the galley, dropped his eyeglasses as an apparant ruse, bent over to pick them up, and forcibly removed her shoe and began tickling her right foot, causing her to laugh uncontrollably momentarily until two other male passengers took alarm and stopped the man, who ws eventually arrested by Mexican authorities in PV.

It was just one of many of the bizarre and colorful tales associated with this once proud airline.

Nikki St. Germain joined her brother with the Lord over a decade after the crash.

Chalk it up to fate, but I was scheduled to be on that flight. I had gone to Sacramento the previous week for State business. Decided to spend the weekend at an old girlfriends house in Roseville.

After a weekend of partying hard with her and friends, felt hung-over and sleepy on Monday. I was young (25) and dumb and full of Rum. Decided to call in sick that day and rebooked for a later afternoon flight on Hughes Airwest.

Learned of the PSA crash shortly after waking up on local Sacramento news. Spooked, I cancelled the afternoon flight and took a one-way rental car all the way home to Chula Vista, driving for ten hours. I recall listening to the radio broadcasts of the crash all down the Valley that afternoon on I-5 and distinctly remember driving past the site and seeing the glow of floodlights up on the hill from I-805 around Midnight. I could smell the crash. It was very unsettling thinking that had I not partied hard all weekend, I would have met my end up there.

I went home and couldn’t sleep. Called in sick again on Tuesday and watched news coverage all day, read the newspaper about it. Was sick to my stomach.

Finally went back to work on Wednesday and everyone there had been told I almost was on that flight. They sort of treated me differently for a long while after that, nicer than usual, although I was always treated well. After awhile time erased the shock and horror of that day, but not the memories.

I was on the bridge of the US Navy ship USNS Taluga when I heard a noise and looked up and saw the plane starting to veer and head for the ground. It was terrible and I felt helpless, we called it into our control center using our radio, that is all we could do.

I am a filmmaker located in Boston, MA. I am conducting research for a documentary film about the 1978 PSA jet crash in San Diego.

I am searching for as many persons who were involved with some aspect of the tragedy who would be willing to be interviewed on camera or by phone… witnesses, police and fire units, investigators, residents of the neighborhood of the crash site, bystanders, clean up crews, reporters.

I am also searching for unpublished photos, news articles, film footage…

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Dave

You can reach me at dff30@aol.com

Saw it happen. I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend in National City to go to the beach. I was approaching SB I-805, on University almost to Boundary, thought I saw something flash or glint in the morning sky to my left. I looked up through my driver’s side window to see the little plane just free fall, totally crumpled. The one guy who posted here is right about the body. I could see what looked like an arm or a leg hanging out the wreckage as it fell. It was horrifying to see that.

The PSA plane sort of went over the top of me, looked like it was going to crash onto 805 so I veered to the shoulder and stopped. But no, the plane turned so sharply it almost did a 180 and then it went in fast. Huge explosion and ball of fire and black smoke. My car shook violently. I could smell the jet fuel immediately.

I raced up Boundary, then over to Nile and parked to see if I could help. The heat was so intense and I was pretty scared to get too close. I saw a lot of neighborhood people running out of their houses as I got out of my car. I ran up Nile Street a block or so and found the innards of a passenger splayed out in the middle of the street and there was a partially clad woman’s torso and the left half of her head (long dark hair) in the driveway of a house on the North side of Nile about six houses or so down from Dwight. There was an artery in her neck still lightly spurting the last bit of blood. Her left eye was staring sraight ahead. I’ll never forget that sight. There was a middle-aged man stillstrapped in his seat, the top of his head badly mangled and his left arm almost severed in the yard of the house next door. These people had to know what was coming, like the other guy said, because the crotch of his pants was glistening wet, but it wasn’t blood. He was leanignto the left and the blood was draining into the grass. That was all it took for me and I ran back to my car, wretched and then left the scene. I drove to my girlfriends house and she said I looked like a ghost. We watched the TV coverage on the news all day and I was in a semi-state of shock. Eventually, I received some counseling as I had recurring nightmares. I eventually got past them.

At the time I used to fly once or twice a year to my parents in Denver. I didn’t step on a jet again until late 1983. I refused.

I was a passenger on Flt 182 that day having boarded in Sacramento with a stop in LA. I had taken that flight a dozen times before in the previous 3 years while working for the State. When I got on I sat in the last row on the right side of the plane in the smoking section. I began to feel very uncomfortable. During the flight to LA I changed my seat three times and a feeling of dread got stronger. When we landed in LA I got off the plane eventhough I was to be met in San Diego. I got a State car and started to drive to San Diego and stopped at one of our offices in Downey to call San Diego to tell them I was driving in from LA. I was invited to attend to attend a staff meeting and five minutes into the meeting a secretary burst into the room to announce that I had been killed in a plane crash in San Diego. That is how I learned of the crash of PSA Flight 182. Like Mark Twain, I was able to say that news of my death was premature.

Nine years after the crash occurred, Douglas Arthur, the brother of Donald St. Germain, who is a victim of the 1978 PSA Incident, is the victim of the deadliest incident by a disgruntled worker in the history of North America.

I was in Gym Class Wilson Jr High that day and remember looking up in the sky seeing the plane fly by, I thought to my self (I love airplanes) went to tie my tennis shoes and when I look up again the wing was on fire and you could hear the precipitating sound of a collusion it seemed it was headed towards the school but all of a sudden shifted. I will never forget that day.

I had classmates that live in North Park and today my mother lives there. Every time I travel to San Diego I remember this sad incident, which is due on Feb. 15th, 2008. I still love travel but this incident always comes to mind.

I lived in San Diego for 2 years while I attended college (Pt. Loma). I am sure I flew that flight from Sacramento via LA to Sand Diego more than once because my parents lived in Chico at the time and I caught the early flight when I returned to school. What always amazed me is that when I would go to work in the Hillcrest area of San Diego the planes would be over my car by barely 100 feet as they were landing. If I remember correctly (it has been so long) the route to get to work took me up a very steep road to get to the Hillcrest area (right past the airport). I always wondered how the aircraft managed to navigate around the buildings at that time. At any rate this horrible accident had an effect on me, I am so sad and sorry for those who died and lost loved ones.

I lived in North Park just on the other side of the freeway from the crash site. I heard what sounded like an explosion and ran outside to see the plane almost directly overhead, wing on fire, headed for the ground. They say it took 13 seconds from collision time to impact with the ground but it seemed like a minute or more to me. I got to the crash site before any emergency crews but very quickly realized that little could be done. I remember an older lady on her front porch telling me she had a hose out back. Her fence was on fire. The hose had little to no pressure and was really of no use. I seen emergency personell arriving and thought it best to leave the area. I used to love to fly. For many months after the crash I could hear the sounds of the plane going down and the several explosions after the crash. I finally got over my extreme fear of flying but to this day I am not so keen on flying.

Saw it happen. I was on my mail run off of El Cajon Blvd when I heard a metallic-sounding crunch, looked up, and saw both the small plane and the PSA jet plummet. I could hear the small plane hit the ground first a couple blocks away, not real loud sound, then a tremendous loud bang when the passenger jet hit. The smoke in the area was thick and black, the smell of jet fuel evident.

You know what they say…through the rain, the sleet, and the snow….I finished my mail run that morning, listening to the news on the radio, all while this tragedy unfolded mere blocks away.

One homeowner on my route had a sister that lived on Nile and that woman found a pair of severed feet in high heel shoes and a severed male left arm in her garden THREE DAYS after the crash, said to be among the last remains discovered, although in 1994 a teenage boy down the street found a small, weathered belt buckle and an index finger tip bone to the first knuckle while building a dirt bike ramp in his backyard off of Nile. They were believed to be remains from that crash. The kid lived on my route and showed me the pictures he posed with.

It was a strange day I’ll never forget.

That’s true. We live on Nile, down the street from the boy who found the buckle and finger. But it was not a belt buckle. It was a seat belt buckle with a finger bone sort of stuck in it. And it was actually in 1996 when the boy found it playing dirt bikes in his parent’s back yard. Their house was about eight or nine houses from the corner of Dwight. Nearly 17 years that was in their back yard. Someone said there had bben some ivy plants there at the time of the crash and that is probably how it went undiscovered. When that family moved in around 1989 or 1990, they did a lot of work back there and took the ivy out. It was a man’s finger and investigators say he probably was holding onto his seat belt and got his finger jammed in it on impact.

In 2001 another neighbor of ours on Boundary, right behind us, resod their back lawn and discovered a small shard of plastic, about seven inches long, and a couple frayed pieces of torn fabric that amazingly still had some of that PSA color in it. It was seat fabric.

I was told one time a small fragment of human eye socket was located in a garden on Nile as well, about 2004 or so. But I never saw that one.

All of this was directly linked to the crash.

There was much destruction this sad day. Terrible what happened. I remember. I was 21 then and in school at SDSU. I lived on Nile with my Aunt and cousin Lupe. We moved there from Argentina in 1977. We love San Diego and our neighborhood brothers and sisters much. Our house was condemned because of damage suffered in fire. We were forced to move to La Mesa for almost two year. We came back but feeling never the same.

There was still outline of repair work on stucco wall of home next door where a person on the airplane went through the wall and their head came apart in my neighbors bathroom. He was much sick for a long time in despair over this

Today I think back and am sad. A terrible event in our loved San Diego.

I was 15 years old when this accident happened. I was at school looking out the window day dreaming and staring at an airplane. All of a sudden the side of the air plane blew up and I was in a state of shock “were was it going to land?” As I feared It did crash into a neighbor hood. I saw a mushroom cload that was enormous. It was 103 degrees that day, I starting running to the crash site because my father was comming back from Portland Oregon that same morning and I thought it could have been his flight. When I reached the scean it was total chaos, I was crying and hysterical there were officers keeping people out when I tried to get past them I was thrown to the ground. I saw people leaving the scene with debri. I was able to make to the airport to find that it was not my fathers flight, Thank God.

I had friends in the Navy who were in charge of the clean up. I was told horrific stories the worst is when people were taking rings and watches of of body parts and stealing the luggage.

I moved back to Portland Oregon in Oct of 1978 and two months later on 12-28-78 an air plane crashed within 2 miles of our home in the city. It landed on 2 homes that were empty and slid through a bunch of trees. Luckely only 10 people died.

I will never forget. It is like It all happened yesterday.

I was 7 years old and attended Central Elementary at the time of the accident. If you are familiar with the area you’ll know that it’s less than a mile away from where the plane crashed down. I had just gottten out of the bathroom when I heard the boom that made me look into the sky. I can remember seeing a fireball,the cesna, falling from the sky. At the time I didn’t know what has happened,but I did know that it could not have been good. My aunt was a nurse at UCSD, she and some of her co workers helped out at ground zero later that day.
My son’s mother lives only a few blocks away now and from time to time I will remember what happened. May everyone who lost their lives that day rest in peace.

It’s true that peeps was taking stuff. My Uncle Jimmy was a young man at that time, around 18 he say, and he and my cousin Louis, who dead now, they always be showing me this and that. They went there when that plane crashed and got them a haul of stuff until the undercover Po be flashing them badges and be chasing people off.

They say back in the day when they used to tell me about this that they got them a gold watch, a couple nice rings, and some money out of a wallet they found in the street. They used that to score some weed in National City the next day.

But they also got them a seat belt, a small piece of the place all ripped. they got them a flight attendant’s shoe with the blood still dry on it. I told them that was gross but they say it was a keepsake of that day. What all else, my cousin Ray had him a PSA magazine that had been on that plane that was all torn and had soem blood on it. Louis gave it to him.

I ain’t saying it was right what they do. But this was back in the day when they rolled liked that, mobbing and stuff. They cool not long after that and Uncle Jimmy he out in El Cajon now in a big old house with a cool ride. But he still got that stuff in a box in the attic. And Louis he died like a few years ago, but he had that stuff around still.

They talk about that day, all the bodies they seen and the parts of bodies. But they bad back then, lifting rings and watched and that right off of severed arms and what not. He gave one ring they had left over to his woman over there in Chula I think she was and she and him they got into it over that saying she was going to call the Po and that. He used to tell that story and laugh.

Yeah, but that was then. This ain’t nothing but said and I would never roll like they do back then. It ain’t right.

I’m sorry for those peeps that got killed in that.

Peace,
Nay

You’re’ right-it wasn’t right to lift personal items off dead people – it’s damn disgusting. Pisses me off reading about punks scrounging for souvenirs from members of loved ones. I hope they got some souvenirs of their own being somebody’s bitch behind bars.

It is true that items were removed from victims remains. My brother-in-law Allen, was a San Diego Police Department officer at the time, and he later told stories of local “thugs” or gang-type members helping themselves to items until chased off, similar to the post here by Naylor.

In one case, a young man actually had an entire severed arm in hand and was trying to wrench off a ring. He was arrested after a brief chase.

People were grabbing many items, virtually anything they could get their hands on, even bloodied or worse, soiled clothing. He was disgusted.

Donald St. Germain’s sister got remarried to David Jackson. Her full name is Nikki June St.Germain-Arthur/Jackson.

St. Germain’s full name is Donald Chester St. Germain.

I knew one of the passengers on board the flight,,,Charles Bren (son of Clare Trevor-movie actress) He was a wonderful young man..only 32 years old…
We worked together at the Bren Company in Los Angeles during 1977/78.
He had invited a photographer that I knew to accompany him on the flight…fortunately that person had to cancel at the last minute…What a tragedy!…I still think of him and the crash…
He left a wonderful family and lifestyle.

One of the interesting outcomes of this tragedy was that, nearly 30 years later, Donald St. Germain’s name continues to come up due mostly in part to the near obsessive fascination with the man by Vasili. True. Just sayin.

My sister’s best friend Twiggy saw this crash happen. She was at a little in and out grocery market down the street. She had just gotten into her car when she saw and heard the impact.

She described the private plane as plummeting like a stone. “It sort of bounced off the wing of the PSA jet, flipp