1980s Aviation ·
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Aeroméxico Flight 498
August 31st, 1986; at 11:46 AM, Aero Mexico Flight 498 began its initial descent into Los Angeles with 58 passengers and six crew members aboard.
At 11:52 AM, N4891F, a Piper PA-28-181 Archer collided with the left horizontal stabilizer of the DC-9, shearing off the top of the Piper's cockpit and decapitating the pilot and both of his passengers.
The heavily damaged Piper fell onto an empty playground at Cerritos Elementary School, at these coordinates: 33°51′55.76″N 118°2′23.97″W
Simultaneously, the DC-9, with most of its vertical and all of its horizontal stabilizer torn off, rolled inverted and immediately dived, slamming into a residential neighbourhood at Holmes Avenue and Reva Circle in Cerritos, exploding on impact.
The explosion scattered the DC-9's wreckage across Holmes Avenue and onto Carmenita Road, destroying four other houses and damaging seven more. killing all 64 passengers and crew aboard the jetliner and 15 people on the ground. A fire sparked by the crash contributed significantly to the damage in Cerritos.
When the air traffic controller assigned to Flight 498 saw the plane vanish from his radar screen, he immediately called up an inbound American Airlines MD-83 for assistance. The pilot reported a large smoke plume off to his left.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigation later found that the Piper had entered the Los Angeles Terminal Control Area airspace without the required clearance, nor equipped with a mode C transponder. (Not regulation at the time)
As a result of this accident and other near misses in terminal control areas, the Federal Aviation Administration required that all jets in US airspace be equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and that light aircraft operating in controlled airspaces be equipped with Mode C transponders.
At 11:52 AM, N4891F, a Piper PA-28-181 Archer collided with the left horizontal stabilizer of the DC-9, shearing off the top of the Piper's cockpit and decapitating the pilot and both of his passengers.
The heavily damaged Piper fell onto an empty playground at Cerritos Elementary School, at these coordinates: 33°51′55.76″N 118°2′23.97″W
Simultaneously, the DC-9, with most of its vertical and all of its horizontal stabilizer torn off, rolled inverted and immediately dived, slamming into a residential neighbourhood at Holmes Avenue and Reva Circle in Cerritos, exploding on impact.
The explosion scattered the DC-9's wreckage across Holmes Avenue and onto Carmenita Road, destroying four other houses and damaging seven more. killing all 64 passengers and crew aboard the jetliner and 15 people on the ground. A fire sparked by the crash contributed significantly to the damage in Cerritos.
When the air traffic controller assigned to Flight 498 saw the plane vanish from his radar screen, he immediately called up an inbound American Airlines MD-83 for assistance. The pilot reported a large smoke plume off to his left.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigation later found that the Piper had entered the Los Angeles Terminal Control Area airspace without the required clearance, nor equipped with a mode C transponder. (Not regulation at the time)
As a result of this accident and other near misses in terminal control areas, the Federal Aviation Administration required that all jets in US airspace be equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and that light aircraft operating in controlled airspaces be equipped with Mode C transponders.
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