Plane Hits Mall; 3 Die, 50 Injured : Bay Area Shoppers Panic as Wreckage Spills Flaming Fuel

A twin-engine light plane crashed into the middle of a big shopping mall jammed with thousands of shoppers Monday night, exploding in flames and killing at least three persons and injuring at least 40 others, Contra Costa County authorities reported.

Witnesses said there was mass panic in the huge Sun Valley Mall as the plane smashed into a glass skylight covering an area between Macy’s and the Emporium-Capwell’s department stores, throwing a ball of flame at least three stories down to the bottom floor of the enclosed shopping center. The center is 30 miles east of San Francisco.

County Fire Chief William Maxfield said at least three and possibly as many as four persons were killed. The twin engine Beechcraft Baron carried a pilot and one passenger, according to a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Trying Instrument Landing

The plane, apparently attempting an instrument landing at fog shrouded Buchanan Field, about a mile away, slammed into the mall at about 8:45 p.m., when the shopping center was teeming with last-minute Christmas shoppers.

The Sun Valley Mall is one of the largest in Northern California.

“There was panic, people were running everywhere,” said Dave Belli, a shopper. “The place filled with smoke, and then power went out. People were crying and hugging each other. Friends and relatives were tending the injured.”

Many of the injured, according to witnesses, were children who had been watching a performance in the lobby area between the two stores that featured Santa Claus and Sesame Street characters, witnesses said.

Harry Sundstrom, another customer, said, “I saw a ball of fire 30 to 40 feet in the air.”

“The whole sky lit up and stayed lit,” said Dino Vigil, 27, of nearby Pacheco. He said he was across the street when the plane struck the glass skylighted mall.

“I thought it was a bomb. Then I realized it had to be the plane. The engine wasn’t sputtering. He went down fast.”

Dan Voerword, who was on the bottom floor of the mall, said that “a fireball came rolling down . . . exploding all the Christmas ornaments. . . . I was about 100 feet away when the fireball came down. I felt this tremendous shudder of the building . . . debris came crashing into the center of the mall by the information booth.”

Voerword said that between six and 10 people were burned in the area around him. He said he helped throw two women whose clothes had burned off into the central fountain to ease their pain until emergency crews arrived to take them out.

A spokeswoman for Mt. Diablo Hospital in Concord said that at least 40 persons were treated in emergency rooms there, most for burns.

Many others were transferred to burn centers at hospitals as far away as Oakland and Berkeley. “It felt like an earthquake,” said Andrew Tynes, 17, of Oakland, who was shopping. A reporter from San Francisco’s KCBS radio said that from across the street: “You wouldn’t think anything had happened, except for the police cars and fire trucks out front. (But) people are scurrying about inside, some are crying, they are looking for their loved ones.”

The reporter said he went into a Magic Pan restaurant in the mall, where he heard a voice yelling, “Registration of the victims is in back.”

He said he talked to one eyewitness who would not give his name, but did relate what he had seen:

“I saw a massive explosion. I saw many casualties, OK. I pushed woman out of the way, down to the ground, so she wouldn’t get burned. There were flames pouring down through the ceiling.”

Buchanan Field Manager Hal Wight, said the aircraft was on its second approach, making an instrument landing because the ceiling was down to 400 feet and visibility was less than three miles, when it went down.

By late Thursday, an eerie fog continued to hover over the shopping center. The tail section of the plane was hanging precariously from the roof of Macy’s.

Stein reported from Concord.