Airplane Accidents

Three years ago, 88 travelers boarded a plane in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, most of them bound back to their workaday world in the U.S. after a relaxing tropical getaway. On Friday, some 400 of their friends and relatives dedicated an oceanfront sculpture to their memory. All 83 passengers and five crew members aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 261 died when their MD-83 jet slammed into the Pacific Ocean off the Ventura County coast.

Stevie Ray Vaughan's death Monday in a helicopter crash serves as a reminder that the life of a touring musician often includes trips in small aircraft under less-than-optimum conditions. As a result, air-crash deaths have been part of the legacy of popular music since before rock 'n' roll was born. For some, including Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, death came early in promising and groundbreaking careers. Others, such as successful hit-maker Jim Croce, suddenly became mourned legends.

In the midst of the Cold War, when Nike missile sites dotted the Southland, a bright red runaway Navy drone airplane veered off course and headed for Los Angeles, triggering a dangerous sequence of events known as the "Battle of Palmdale." It's not a battle that the military could say it won back on Aug. 16, 1956.

An arriving Asiana Airlines jumbo jet narrowly missed a departing Southwest Airlines flight at Los Angeles International Airport last month after a controller mix-up that apparently placed both planes on the same runway, federal authorities confirmed Tuesday. A captain aboard the Asiana Boeing 747-400, which was arriving from Inchon, South Korea, aborted the landing Aug. 19 and came within several hundred feet of a Southwest jet headed to Albuquerque, according to a report obtained by The Times.

The pilot of a plane that crashed into an apartment building in the Fairfax district this summer, killing five people, had cocaine and alcohol in his system, authorities said Tuesday. Jeffrey T. Siegel, 50, a West Los Angeles contractor, died from his injuries, said Lt. Fred Corral, of the Los Angeles County coroner's office. The death certificate also will cite the detection of "cocaine and alcohol intake," he said.

A private jet with seven aboard -- including New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez -- slightly overran a runway at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport on Friday and was stopped by a special material designed to keep craft on the airfield, officials said. No one was injured after the Gulfstream landed on the airport's east-west Runway 8, slowed down and then turned into an area covered with a system designed to bring aircraft to a stop, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

A small plane crashed into a sheet metal shop Friday, killing six of the seven people aboard and igniting a fireball that sent workers scrambling for safety, authorities said. The crash killed a New York City real estate developer and his wife; two interior designers who were renovating the developer's vacation home; and the pilot and co-pilot. The couple's 13-year-old daughter was the only survivor.

In both commercial and private aviation, pilot heart attacks are considered the greatest medical threat to flight safety, and underlying heart disease is the most common reason for the Federal Aviation Administration to deny a pilot's medical certificate. Such a certificate is a prerequisite for any license to fly an airplane.

From the hillside cemetery, you can look down, through the rows of red cedar and palms, upon much of San Bernardino and Colton. One recent day, Keith Hubbs stood near his brother's grave, and pointed out that it was a rare, crystal-clear afternoon. Looking north, the snow-capped San Bernardino mountains framed the spectacular setting. "It was like this the day we buried Kenny," he said. "Except the wind blew so hard at his funeral.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials worked Thursday to confirm the identities of two men killed in a plane crash at Santa Monica Airport, but friends of the two men identified them as the general manager of an aviation website and a world-traveling Internet business development consultant. Paulo Emanuele, believed to be 46, was the general manager of the airliners.net website. Martin Schaedel, believed to be about 23, was a consultant to FareCompare, an airline fare comparison website.