Cerritos to mark 40 years since deadly air disaster

Los Angeles County firefighters and mutual aid agencies work within the debris field after a mid-air collision with Aeromexico Flight 498 and Piper Archer aircraft, August 31,1986 in Cerritos, California. A DC-9 aircraft crashed into Los Angeles suburb homes killing 67 on both aircraft and 15 additional people on the ground.

Photo by Bob Riha, Jr. (Getty Images)

CERRITOS — The city of Cerritos will mark the 40th anniversary of one of the deadliest aviation disasters in Southern California history Monday with a remembrance ceremony honoring the 82 people killed when two airplanes collided over the city in 1986.

The informal gathering will begin at 10 a.m. Aug. 31 at the Air Disaster Memorial Sculpture in the Cerritos Sculpture Garden, at the northwest corner of Bloomfield Avenue and 183rd Street. Members of the Cerritos City Council are scheduled to offer remarks, followed by a moment of silence. The public is invited to attend.

The ceremony will commemorate the crash of Aeromexico Flight 498 and a privately operated Piper PA-28-181 on Aug. 31, 1986.

Shortly before noon that Sunday, Aeromexico Flight 498, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 carrying passengers toward Los Angeles International Airport, collided with the smaller Piper at an altitude of about 6,560 feet over Cerritos.

The commercial jet was on the final leg of a scheduled flight from Tijuana to Los Angeles and was under radar control. The Piper had departed Torrance and was traveling toward Big Bear under visual flight rules and was not in radio contact with an air traffic control facility, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

All 64 passengers and crew members aboard Flight 498 were killed, along with the pilot and two passengers aboard the Piper. Fifteen people on the ground also died, bringing the death toll to 82.

The Piper plunged into an unoccupied playground at Cerritos Elementary School near 183rd Street, narrowly missing people leaving nearby Calvary Lutheran Church after morning services. The DC-9 crashed into a residential neighborhood east of Carmenita Road, igniting homes along Ashworth Place, Holmes Avenue and Reva Street.

Firefighters, sheriff's deputies, city employees, Red Cross personnel, community volunteers and emergency crews from surrounding communities descended on Cerritos in the aftermath. The disaster left a lasting mark on a city that at the time had only recently experienced rapid residential growth.

The NTSB later concluded that the probable cause of the collision was limitations in the air traffic control system's ability to provide collision protection through both procedures and automated safeguards.

Investigators also cited the Piper's inadvertent and unauthorized entry into the Los Angeles Terminal Control Area and limitations of the aviation industry's "see and avoid" principle for keeping aircraft separated.

The crash became an important case in aviation safety and prompted recommendations from the NTSB to the Federal Aviation Administration aimed at reducing the risk of similar midair collisions.

Two decades after the disaster, Cerritos dedicated the Air Disaster Memorial Sculpture in 2006 as a permanent tribute to those who died and a place of reflection for surviving family members and the community.

Located inside the Cerritos Sculpture Garden, the memorial incorporates white and dark gray marble and black granite. Its two free-form shapes resemble abstract wings, intended to symbolize flying, weightlessness and release.

Monday's gathering will take place exactly 40 years after the collision.

City officials said the remembrance is intended to give residents and others affected by the disaster an opportunity to honor those who died and reflect on an event that remains deeply embedded in Cerritos history.