Five Witnesses to Jet Crash Sue, Claiming Distress : Courts: All were working at a car dealership in Santa Ana when the twin-engine plane went down last year in a nearby vacant lot, killing five on board.

Five people who were working at a car dealership in Santa Ana last December when a twin-engine jet crashed into a nearby empty lot have filed suit against the jet’s owner and the charter company, claiming that the grisly scene has left them emotionally scarred.

“I have had some weird dreams,” said Jim Lawson, 35, of Yorba Linda, one of the plaintiffs, who worked in the service department at Honda Santa Ana. “And if I hear a plane, I have to stop what I am doing to track it so I know exactly where it is going and what it is doing. I imagine what it would look like crashing,” he said.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court by Lawson and four of his former co-workers at Honda Santa Ana claims that as spectators of the fiery crash they suffered long-term emotional harm, were unable to work and had to seek medical attention.

Defendants named in the suit included Management Activities Inc., the company to which the jet was registered, Dr. Robert Gumbiner, who is owner of Management Activities and founder of FHP International Corp., and Martin Aviation, the firm that chartered the jet.

Lawyers for the defendants said their clients had not yet been served with the lawsuit and therefore they had no comment on the allegations.

Lisa R. Geraurd, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said they haven’t been able to recover from the close call of nearly being hit by the nose-diving plane and the trauma of seeing the explosions and the body parts strewn on the ground. The two crew members on the plane and all three passengers, including the president and two other executives of the In-N-Out Burger chain, were killed.

Of the five spectators to the tragedy who have filed suit, Lawson, Mike Lara, Thomas L. Anderson, John Mezurecky and Miguel Orona, only Orona still works at the dealership. Lawson said because of emotional illness he was unemployed for seven months and only two weeks ago took a job at another dealership. He said he can no longer work directly with customers because constant anxiety has made him short-tempered.

Geraurd said her clients have been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, the same complaint claimed by some returning Vietnam veterans.

“The difference is they went to war knowing that what they would see would not be pleasant,” Lawson said. “But I was unprepared for what I saw.”