Aeromexico Over Cerritos: Tragedy Almost Replayed

Aeromexico Flight 498--the same flight that collided with a light plane over Cerritos last August, killing 82 people--has reported almost colliding with another light plane near Cerritos last weekend under circumstances that were eerily similar, federal officials disclosed Monday.

Russell Parks, a public information officer with the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles, said that like last August, Saturday’s Flight 498 was heading northwest toward Los Angeles at between 6,000 and 7,000 feet when it encountered a small plane in the Los Angeles Terminal Control Area--airspace normally reserved for planes approaching or taking off from Los Angeles International Airport.

Like last August, Parks said, the DC-9 jetliner was under the control of the Los Angeles Terminal Radar Control facility at the airport and authorized to be in the TCA.

Like last August, he said, controllers both saw the big jetliner on the radar screen and talked with the crew members in the cockpit.

Like last August, he said, the light plane was neither observed on the controllers’ radar screens nor in communication with them by radio.

And like last August, he said, the small plane was not believed to have received the required authorization to fly in the TCA.

The big difference, Parks said, was that in Saturday’s incident, the big jetliner and the small plane missed one another, with vertical separation that the Aeromexico pilot described as between 300 and 500 feet. The jetliner landed on schedule in Los Angeles without further incident or injuries.

The Aeromexico pilot did not say how close the planes came to each other horizontally or whether either aircraft took evasive action.

Last Aug. 31, Aeromexico Flight 498 and a small plane--a Piper Cherokee Archer II--slammed together over Cerritos before plummeting to the ground, killing all 67 aboard the two aircraft and 15 people on the ground. The disaster set off a round of disclosures of near-collisions and technical shortcomings in the air traffic control system for the crowded Southland skies.

North of City

While that collision occurred more or less directly over Cerritos, Saturday’s near-miss took place about five miles north of the city, Parks said.

The Aeromexico pilot’s report indicated that the light plane involved in Saturday’s incident probably was a Cessna, but no further description has been given and neither the aircraft nor the pilot has been identified, Parks said.

Aeromexico officials were not immediately available to report how many passengers and crew members were aboard Saturday’s Flight 498 or to comment on the incident.

Unlike most other airlines involved in fatal crashes in the past, Aeromexico did not change the number of the flight after the August disaster. The flight originates in Mexico City, with stops at Guadalajara, Loreto and Tijuana before the final destination, Los Angeles.

The flight schedule has remained about the same--last August’s crash occurred at 11:52 a.m.; Saturday’s near-miss reportedly took place at 11:25 a.m.

Parks said that Saturday’s incident is still under investigation by the FAA, and “all we have right now is a preliminary report. . . . It’s a very preliminary thing, right now.”