I WITNESSED THE PLANE CRASH

I think about this crash every once in a while. The same scenes come back to my memory of watching the passenger plane crack-up and fall, and the jet veering off after the crash. One of my classmates named David saw it first, and yelled, "look at the sky-writer," which was the passenger plan breaking-up. I remember that I replied that sky-writers don't have pieces falling off when they're flying. Pieces were flying-off the plane and sparkling in the noon day sun. A sight that would have been beautiful, if not so horrific.

Another crash, which I did not witness, but visited right after the crash, was a Flying Tiger Line plane that crashed a few miles from where the passenger plane above crashed. It crashed in 1962, and I rode by bike out to see it, because it crashed right across the street from where my uncle lived. The plane was short of the then Burbank Airport (then Lockheed-Burbank, then Hollywood-Burbank, then, I believe, the Bob Hope Airport). The plane clipped a telephone pole and landed in a lot, stopping at a brick wall, if memory serves. The Burbank Airport was a busy airport adjacent to the large Lockheed plant. It was great living near there, because I could watch the many types of planes flying to and from there, including my favorite, the Lockheed P-38, with it's distinctive two fuselages, and double tails. Later, I could watch the very unusual jets with engines attached to the sides of the planes near the tail, when these planes fist flew.