With multiple airports, crowded skies and congested neighborhoods below flight paths, San Diego’s airspace has proven to be a recipe for disaster.
Thursday’s crash of a Cessna 550 that killed multiple passengers and crew is only the latest example of the accidents that have claimed lives both in the air and on the ground over the years.
At least in the case of the latest crash of the plane on its approach to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, no one on the ground was hurt despite damage to multiple homes.
While other cities face their own airport challenges, San Diego is unique. It has a mix of military, commercial and civilian aircraft — and the communication and tracking challenges it presents.
And it has airports in close proximity like San Diego International Airport — still Lindbergh Field to locals — just across the bay from the Naval Air Station North Island.
Even Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport has not been without its share of accidents. For example, in 2017, the pilot of a Beech Bonanza reported engine failure shortly after takeoff from Montgomery. The plane crashed into a Clairemont home and killed both aboard. Fire destroyed the home, the Union-Tribune reported.
San Diego’s worst and arguably most famous air disaster, however, was the 1978 mid-air collision between a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner and a privately owned Cessna in 1979 that killed 135 passengers and crew on the jet and seven on the ground. Two aboard the private plane were also killed.
That crash of PSA Flight 182 still haunts the city. Besides the loss of life, more than 20 homes were damaged or destroyed in North Park. A plaque to remember the victims where the plane struck was mounted in the sidewalk at Dwight and Nile streets last year. Another memorial is at St. Augustine High School.
Then there are the military crashes. The most recent was the E/A-18 Growler that plummeted into San Diego Bay after the two crewmembers aboard ejected. The pilot and radar operator were rescued by fishing boat and the jet was later recovered.
Some military crashes have proven to be deadly to those on the ground. In 2008, a F/A-18 enroute to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar crashed into a home after the pilot ejected.
Four family members in the home, one of several destroyed by the crash, were killed. The Marine Corps blamed pilot error and mechanical failures for the accident.
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