On the morning of September 25, 1978, a PSA Boeing 727 collided with a Cessna over the North Park neighborhood.
On Thursday morning, a memorial for the victims was held at the intersection of Dwight and Nile, where the plane went down. Their names were read aloud as roses were placed into a large vase, one for each victim: 135 people on the 727, two on the Cessna and seven people on the ground. Nine were injured.
The memorial was attended by family members, former PSA employees and others who remembered what was, at the time, the worst airline disaster in U.S. history.
On that day 47 years ago, Michael Bagnas was beginning his sophomore year at St. Augustine high school, less than a mile away from the crash site. He was between classes, sitting just inside a building with a couple of friends, when they heard a boom.
He now knows that sound was the airplanes colliding.
“We got up and turned around and took a step outside the doors. And I remember looking up and seeing the plane with the wing on fire. And you just can't even believe that's real,” he said. “I said, ‘Look, they're making a movie.’”
Bagnas said they quickly realized it was not a movie. He said it took about 15 seconds before the plane hit the ground. Bagnas said it felt like an earthquake, then he and his friends watched in horror as a fireball rose into the sky.
“It’s like it happened yesterday to me. I’ll never, ever forget it,” said Bagnas with a quaver in his voice.
Fred Hall is another who will never forget that day. In 1978, he was a regional operations director at PSA’s headquarters at the San Diego International Airport. He said he first realized something was terribly wrong when he heard voices from down the hall.
“We were two doors down from the dispatch office who were saying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, you know 182 is down,’” Hall said. “So I heard from them and I looked out the window and saw the smoke.”
Hall said he and a co-worker rushed to the site, but he doesn’t like to talk about what he saw when he got to Dwight and Nile.
Last year, a plaque was placed on the southwest corner of that intersection. A formal memorial was also dedicated at St. Augustine's; permanent signs of a horrible day in San Diego history that everyone at Thursday’s memorial said we must never forget.
