Victims’ families gather to remember PSA Flight 182 on the 40th anniversary of the horrific disaster when a passenger jet crashed into a Cessna, raining fire down on San Diego
- PSA Flight 182 crashed into a Cessna in 1978 killing 144 people in San Diego
- To mark the 40th anniversary a special screening was held for a documentary about the crash with victims’ families attending
- First responders & eye witnesses also attended and shared stories about the day
A special documentary was screened marking the 40 anniversary of PSA Flight 182 colliding with a Cessna killing 144 people in San Diego.
The screening for ‘Return to Dwight and Nile,’ which is the name of the streets where the plane crashed was held at Grossmont College. People who lost loved ones, witnesses and first responders to the horrific crash in 1978 were in attendance.
‘I said to my friends, ”Hey, they’re making a movie,” Michael Bagnas, who was a sophomore at a nearby high school recounted to NBC 7.
He quickly realized the plane crash was very real. ‘It hit and literally the ground shook. Like it felt like it moved several inches underneath us and this big, huge fireball, mushroom cloud just billowed up.’
PSA Flight 182 |(pictured) crashed into a Cessna in 1978 killing 144 people in San Diego. For the 40th anniversary of the crash there was a special screening of a documentary about the tragic day
The documentary is titled ‘Return to Dwight and Nile,’ which are the cross streets where the plane crashed (pictured)
Victims’ families, first responders and eye witnesses from that day attended the screening (pictured)
‘I was writing the report when all of a sudden we heard a radio report came in over the air that one of the officers was reporting that he had a jetliner down,’ Bill Nemec, who was a brand-new San Diego police officer said.
Nemec said he and two other officers jumped into an ambulance and headed to the crash site.
‘There wasn’t a whole lot of hope for finding survivors, yet we kept looking,’ he said.
Martin Ennis who helped organize the screening said that keeping the memory of the crash alive is important as its a part of local San Diego history.
‘It was San Diego’s hometown airline which made a bad event just a little bit worse,’ he said.
There is talk of a memorial plaque being placed at the intersection of Dwight and Nile streets where the plane crash landed for next year’s anniversary.
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