Earthquake 89
A-7 Cors Air
Sad. R.I.P. Everyone in the apartment and R.I.P. to the pilot.
story
Many Feared Dead In Alameda As Jet Crashes Into Apartments
By JIM WASCHER A Navy A-7 Corsair jet fighter crashed into a 36-unit apartment building in Alameda last night. The building housed at least 80 people and authorities reported early this morning that most were missing and feared dead. The crash reduced the building to rubble and a spokesman for the Alameda Fire Department said it was still in flames nearly four hours after the 8:25 p.m. crash. The spokesman added that two and perhaps three other apartment buildings adjacent to the crash site were also on fire.
Witnesses say a fireball shot hundreds of feet into the air after the jet slammed into the top of the wooden, three-story structure and exploded. Flames were visible from rooftops in downtown Oakland and from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The crash was within two miles of the Alameda Naval Air Station. The Associated Press reported that a young woman sitting on a porch across the street from the crash site said, "There were two big explosions. The ground kind of shook. I went blank for a moment and then I looked
over there. There just wasn't a building there any more. Then there was a fire and people screaming." 'Flames On The Wing' Another witness told the A.P. that he saw the jet come in "with flames on the wing, hit the place and explode." Rev. Milton Geyer of the Baptist Church of Alameda, who lives across the street from the scene at 1809 Central, said, "My wife and I saw people hollering for help from the third floor. I think only a small percentage could have gotten out." Navy journalist Jack Lee of the Alameda Air Station's Press
Information Office said a single-seat Navy A-7 Corsair jet assigned to the Lemoore Naval Air Station near Fresno was missing on an evening flight to Sacramento. Although the jet was not scheduled to land at Alameda, it "was to have passed over Oakland," according to Lee. He identified the pilot of the missing plane as Lt. Robert Lee Ward of Lemoore, but added that he was "unable to confirm that the missing plane is the one that crashed in Alameda." 22 Treated Alameda Hospital spokesman Joyce Jacobsen said 16 people, including one fireman, had been treated there as a result of the crash. She added that most were suffering from "anxiety and hysteria" over relatives trapped inside the struck building. Jacobsen said five others had been admitted to the hospital. One other crash victim was reported hospitalized in "satisfactory" condition at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland with first- and second-degree burns. James Williams, shift commander at the Alameda County Coroner's Office, told the Daily this morning that rescue teams were still working the perimeters of the crash site. Rescue Operations It was still "a little too warm to really handle things" at the scene, he said, adding that he expects rescue operations to continue "well into tomorrow" — meaning today. The center of the crash site is still "quite hot," Williams said, and he called the area a "cinder-type scene." It was almost four hours after the crash before rescue workers were able to bring in cranes and begin sifting through the still-smoldering wreckage of what had been the apartment buildings.
