VIDEO: Aug. 31, 1986 - Quiet Sunday Turns Into Horrific Nightmare For Cerritos

The day of August 31, 1986 seemed like a typical Sunday morning in the neighborhood near the intersection of Carmenita Road and 183rd Street, where neighbors prepared for things like a birthday party or a day spent painting their homes.

Then at 11:55 a.m., tragedy hit this otherwise quiet neighborhood of cul-de-sacs and single-family homes. Two planes, an Aeromexico DC-9 jetliner carrying 64 passengers from Mexico City to LAX and a single-engine Piper Cherokee Archer II aircraft carrying three people from Torrance to Big Bear City, collided in mid-air and crashed into the area where many people enjoyed their last couple of weeks of summer. After the rubble cleared, 82 people were killed, including everyone on both aircrafts and 15 people on the ground.

The Aeromexico jet crashed into 17 homes on Holmes Avenue, Reva Place and Ashworth Place while the Piper “Archer” plane crashed on the unoccupied grounds of . For the next few weeks, the city of Cerritos drew the attention of the world as images of debris cluttering the cul-de-sacs, the remains of burned-out homes and families mourning their losses were broadcast for many to see.

Reports from that day said even people from as far as Signal Hill—eight miles from Cerritos—could hear the crash.

Witnesses described a vastly different neighborhood as crews rushed to douse the fires and recover the bodies; many body parts were scattered among the mountains of debris.

“For hours after the disaster, the acrid smell of smoke and death hung over the neighborhood, along with the odor of jet fuel,” wrote Kathleen Cairns of the Press-Telegram, describing the aftermath of the disaster.

Carmen Saldaria, who lived a block away from the crash site, told the newspaper that she saw the DC-9 heading straight down and saw smoke heading toward the sky.

“People were crying and screaming and holding each other,” she said. “No one came out of the houses that had been destroyed.”

While the neighborhood lost 15 people that day, Sue and Wayne Nelson were lucky to be alive. The couple’s home on Ashworth Place was badly damaged by parts of the DC-9.

“There was a huge crash and then beams and wood started falling in my living room,” Sue Nelson told the Los Angeles Times in an article published the day after the crash. “I had heard the impact of planes colliding. My little boy was in the garage. All I could think was, ‘My little boy is dead'.”

However, her son, who was seven at the time, was safe and she pulled him out from the damaged garage.

Wayne Nelson lamented on the damage: “We polished the cars this weekend. Now we’re going to rebuild a house.”

An article from the Press-Telegram published the day after the tragedy pointed out that some in the neighborhood never thought an air disaster would happen in Cerritos.

“We play football here and ride bikes,” neighborhood resident Tim Kramer told the Press-Telegram the day after. “You never figure that one day there is going to be bodies all over the place. Things like this are only supposed to happen in faraway places.”

The Cerritos air disaster prompted court cases against the air traffic controllers at Los Angeles International Airport, Aeromexico and the family of William Kramer, the pilot in the Piper plane that crashed on the grounds of Cerritos Elementary. An eventual court case ruled that Kramer and the Federal Aviation Administration were equally responsible for the crash.

MichaelScarne's YouTube page has many news file videos from local television stations reporting the Cerritos Air Disaster. (Play the video in the image carousel for a full on the scene report from Aug. 31, 1986.)

City Invites Community to Attend 25th Anniversary Remembrance

The community is invited to attend the Cerritos Air Disaster 25th Anniversary Remembrance at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, August 31. The ceremony will be held at the Cerritos Air Disaster Memorial in the Cerritos Sculpture Garden which is located in the Civic Center.

The memorial will be a respectful gathering held in memory of the victims of the Aug. 31, 1986 mid-air collision. The remembrance will include a brief formal ceremony with the Cerritos City Council; a reading of the victims' names; a prayer for the victims and their loved ones; and a moment of silence.

For more information, please call the City's Community Participation Division at (562) 865-8101.

TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION

What did you see or hear that day? Do you remember the collision vividly? How did you first learn what happened?

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* Visit Patch tomorrow for a look at the headlines, quotes and images that hit front-page news throughout the world in the days following this devastating tragedy.