No One Was Hurt in Plane Crash : Luck Was With Apartment Complex Residents

It was just after noon Saturday, and Juan Cheguen was driving home from his job as a picture framer at a local gift store when he saw the smoke and flames pouring from his apartment complex on Melrose Street in Buena Park.

A single-engine plane had just slammed into the rear of his two-story apartment, exploding in a ball of flame. His wife and daughter were several blocks away, watching the city’s annual Silverado Days parade.

“We’re lucky nothing happened to us,” said an ashen Cheguen, 28, as he gazed at the firefighters battling the blaze.

So were a number of others.

When the plane that had just taken off from Fullerton Municipal Airport crashed into The Village apartments in the 7100 block of Melrose Street at 12:12 p.m. Saturday, there were few residents in the complex. Many were watching the nearby Silverado Days parade.

One Unit Was Vacant

Lewis Hassman, the 64-year-old pilot of the plane, was killed, but no one on the ground was injured in the crash.

The building hit by the plane contained three apartment units. Cheguen’s was Apartment B, the center unit. Apartment A, on one side, was vacant. Mrs. Ralph Malden lived in Apartment C, on the other side.

She said Saturday afternoon that she had been shopping when the crashed occurred.

Ed Aringdale, 42, was on his patio nearby sipping coffee and repairing old light cords when he heard the sound of a “muffled engine.” Then there was silence, followed by a loud explosion.

“I knew instantly what it was,” Aringdale said.

He rushed to the burning building the plane had hit and began pounding on doors. “When nobody answered I kicked in the doors,” said the former policeman, who now works for a trucking company. “Most of the places were empty, but you can’t take anything for granted . . . God, it could have been ugly.”

Closest to Crash

Susan Koehler, 24, was nearest the impact, less than 30 yards away. She was in an upstairs bedroom directly across from Cheguen’s apartment. She was dusting furniture and listening to music when the plane hit.

“It was like this giant fireball,” she recalled, sipping on soft drink as she waited for the Red Cross to help find her temporary housing. “The whole window was filled with flames . . . There was smoke and the smell of jet fuel.”

She ran downstairs and out the front door, yelling at neighbors to call for help.

“Everybody was panicking,” she said.

Carol Geiger, who moved into the complex from Iowa 2 1/2 weeks ago, thought it was another earthquake. She had been in Southern California only two days when a 6.1 magnitude earthquake shook the region Oct. 1.

“What’s next?” an exasperated Geiger said. “It’s a lot safer in Iowa than here . . . . It’s incredible nobody around was killed.”

Unusually Quiet

Aringdale said it was unusually quiet in the complex when the crash occurred.

“Real peaceful,” he said, his hands black from picking through the charred apartments looking for anyone who might have been injured. “Just another Saturday. Until that plane hit.”

As she often does on Saturdays, Gay Christine Fletcher was watering her flowers on her patio in a neighboring apartment complex, Melrose Manor, when she noticed the plane in the distance. Then, as if in a dream, she said, she watched the plane dive at an angle toward Cheguen’s apartment 100 yards away.

One of Fletcher’s neighbors at Melrose Manor, Dave Baker, was playing solitaire in his apartment when he heard what sounded like “tires exploding.” Within minutes, he said, the buildings at Cheguen’s complex were engulfed in flames.

Baker described the experience as “spooky,” noting that the area is less than two miles from the site of an AeroMexico jetliner crash in a Cerritos neighborhood on Labor Day weekend last year.

Said Tony Santos, one of Cheguen’s neighbors: “First Cerritos, now this. Will it ever be safe to look up again?”

Times Staff Writers Bob Schwartz and Lynn Smith contributed to this story.

CRASHES OF SMALL PLANES Saturday, July 21, 1980:

Pilot Russell R. Askeris, 47, of Stanton was killed when his single-engine Cessna crashed into a power pole and lines about one mile east of Fullerton Municipal Airport. The crash briefly knocked out power to about 600 customers of Southern California Edison Co. and caused the temporary closure of the Santa Fe Railroad tracks.

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 1985:

A small private plane trying to land at the Fullerton airport crashed into a railroad embankment. The pilot, Steven R. Johnson, 33, of Anaheim, and the passenger, Albert Allen, 43, of Yorba Linda, walked away with superficial injuries.

Wednesday, June 4, 1986:

Pilot Bruce Wayne, 52, the airborne traffic reporter who for 18 years guided millions of motorists through Southern California traffic snarls, was killed when his plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Fullerton Municipal Airport.

Saturday, Nov. 22, 1986:

A single-engine Grumman Tiger AA5 crashed into the front lawn of a home on its approach to the Fullerton airport. Pilot Frank Rodriguez, 23, of Cerritos and student Cecil Young, 53, of Orange suffered cuts on their heads and faces.

Thursday, Oct. 8, 1987:

Pilot Dave Quigley of Orange walked away from the wreckage unhurt after the engine of his Maule 210-C stalled, and the plane fell about 150 feet onto the airport parking lot.