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Fiery Plane Crash Recalled 39 Years Later

Chances are you can figure out who has lived here a long time by asking only one question, "Do you remember the plane that crashed into the apartment?"

 

Imagine a jet flying 400 miles per hour at 28,000 feet altitude plummeting to the ground in the middle of the Island, slamming into a multi-story apartment complex then bursting into flames.

For those who find that hard to fathom or think it's the plot line for a new action adventure film, you are either newcomers to the Island or too young to remember what for many Alamedans was a defining moment in their lives.

Locals of a certain age have stored the image of what happened Wednesday, Feb. 7, 1973 at 8:13 p.m. right next to their memories of the day President Kennedy was assasinated, John Lennon was gunned down and the Twin Towers fell.

For those who witnessed the deadly accident or saw its immediate aftermath, the crash of the jet into the four-story Tahoe Apartments at 1814 Central Avenue, smack dab in the middle of the Island, was a life-changing moment.

The plane that crashed was actually one of two U.S. Navy A-7E Corsair II jet interceptors that were flying together on a routine training flight to Sacramento from the Lemoore Naval Air Station in Fresno. (Yes, that's right, this was not a jet flying in or out of the former Naval Air Station Alameda as some have assumed over the years.)

The impact, explosion and ensuing fire destroyed the apartment house and spread to three adjacent apartment buildings.

The pilot and ten people on the ground were killed. Over two dozen more were injured.

(To get a sense of the size of the apartment it hit, you can see an aerial photograph of the Sycamore Apartments (Former site of Tahoe Apartments) here.)

A detailed and harrowing account of the crash can be found on this site of notable California aviation disasters. Here are some excerpts from that report: 

"One of the jets, piloted by Lieutenant Robert Lee Ward, 28, inexplicably broke from the formation. Moments later, the pilot of the second Corsair, flight leader Lt. John Pianetta, noticed that Ward’s jet was no longer flying alongside his own aircraft and radioed Oakland Air Traffic Control that he had 'lost his wing man.'”

Pianetta was given permission to turn back to look for Ward’s Corsair and as he banked his aircraft to try to locate the missing jet, he witnessed a fiery explosion erupt far below, amidst the twinkling lights of the city of Alameda.

Lt. Ward’s jet, traveling at more that 400 mph, had plunged out of the nighttime sky at a steep angle and slammed into the four-story Tahoe Apartments building at 1814 Central Avenue in the center of the city....

Over the next several days, investigators sifting through the smoldering rubble determined that 11 people, including Lieutenant Ward, the jet’s pilot, had been killed in the disaster. Twenty-six other people were treated at nearby hospitals and eventually released....

A Navy board of inquiry, formed at the nearby Alameda Naval Air Station to investigate the crash, heard testimony from a number of witnesses, including two civilian metallurgists. One, Charles F. Choa, told the Navy board that he had found evidence of a cockpit fire involving the pilot’s oxygen hose, and that the in-flight blaze was “very near” Ward’s oxygen mask.

The second metallurgist, Mario Lara, told the panel that while performing lab tests, he had managed to create a similar blaze with a glowing cigarette.  Lara testified that while a lighted match took too long to produce the type of blaze present in the Corsair’s cockpit, the burning cigarette touched off the oxygen hose “immediately.” Asked whether he could determine the cause of the fire, Lara said “any flame or spark” — although he did not specifically blame it on a lit cigarette.

You can listen to a detailed and compelling oral history of the event from former Alameda mayor Terry LaCroix at the California Digital Story Telling Project website. 

Also look for more details on the Notable California Air Disasters website and on this aviation history site.  

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Alex Gronke (Editor) February 7, 2012 at 07:18 pm
Fascinating. I had always assumed the jet was out of the air station.
David Skaff February 7, 2012 at 07:21 pm
More info, pictures and an illustration here: http://flattopshistorywarpolitics.yuku.com/topic/1835
sam February 7, 2012 at 10:16 pm
boy do I remember this. Right down the street from my grandparents house, shattered windows in their house ....my mom and dad grabbing us kids getting us into the car to run over to check on them.Crazy for a little kid (10.at the time) but I remember it vividly
Kurt Sorensen February 8, 2012 at 01:18 pm
I was 11 and lived at an apartment building at 1615 central. I remember the building especially my window shaking. My mom took me to the corner of Grand and Central to watch all the fire trucks. We didn't find out what happened until the next day. Still think it about when I drive by.
Ken Harrison February 8, 2012 at 09:39 pm
I was driving east on San Antonio just before Franklin Park when I saw this enormous ball of flame erupt straight ahead of me. My first thought was that the house I had purchased just a year earlier was going up in flames (it was in poor shape then), forgetting the turn that San Antonio takes at Morton, which took the flames out of my direct line of sight.. I went home and turned on my Bearcat scanner (to the old APD frequencies, or course) and almost immediately heard the words "airplane crash." My first thought was NAS Alameda, but I learned the next day that the plane came from Lemoore. IIRC, by that time people could get no closer than two blocks away. A harrowing night of flames, smoke, sirens and general noise. BTW, I'm still in that now-restored home.
Carol Parker March 8, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Patch reader, THEO KARANTSALIS, who grew up in Alameda wrote to us to say he did some research to investigate whether there were any official records of the crash still around. Here were his findings:
Government records of 1973 Alameda jet crash “lost” By THEO KARANTSALIS Official records related to an investigation of an California jet crash have disaapeared. “The entire record is missing and presumed lost,” a U.S. Navy spokesman wrote, March 6, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking a copy of the government's investigative report. Records related to the A-73E Corsair II jet crash, which occurred in Alameda, Calif., on February 7, 1973, were held at a long-term storage facility in Maryland. “To the extent that there were any pictures or documents concerning this incident in that file, they would have been lost with it," the report shows.
Colin March 14, 2012 at 03:31 am
I remember this clear as yesterday. I was at home watching Adam-12 with my parents when we heard the crash. My friends ran by the house and said come on. So we ran half a mile to the crash site and saw the disaster. My neighbor was a fireman who responded that night too. The next day me and my friends were on the front page of the new paper. I remember before the crash, delivering news papers to some of the people in the apartment building who were killed. It was very sad and tramatic to me as a kid.
Tom Brody March 14, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I remember the news story. At that time, I had been on Alameda Island on only two occasions. Once, was for a bicycle ride from Berkeley to San Leandro. The other time was for a family outing to a restaurant called, The Whale's Tail, which is now occupied by a Moroccan restaurant called, Abigail Cafe. Anyway, at the time of the crash I was busy at U.C.Berkeley with my senior undergraduate research project, purifying histidinol phosphate aminotransferase. This enzyme uses vitamin B6 as a cofactor.
Dave Michael April 6, 2012 at 03:14 pm
I was watching television, living on Pearl Street, when I heard a whistling sound like a bomb dropping, and then the lights went out. I visited the site a few days later and was amazed at how big the destruction was.
mary April 8, 2012 at 05:09 am
A group of friends and I were standing outside the Boys Club on Lincoln that night. I heard a high pitched sound, looked in it's direction, saw a flash, heard the boom and next thing I knew flames in the direction of Central. We all took off running, cutting thru the old Haight Elementary towards whatever had happened.
When I got there the building was on fire, people were running, screaming out of windows. I don't remember any emergency vehicles being there yet. As that point we could still watch from accross the street. Watch was all we could do. It got hot very fast and as we were standing there, the whole front wall of the building started to collapse. I don't remember exactly when emergency crews started to arrive, wasn't too many at this time. Like I said, it happened very fast. All of us across the street had to move way down the block because of the heat and what I came to learn later was the smell of burning flesh. I remember this clearly all these years later. I was 14.
Janet Dockery July 15, 2012 at 12:19 am
I grew up in Alameda and My dad was a Captain in the Alameda Fire Dept. and was there after it crashed. It was horrible. I remembered visiting friends who lived there, the year before. I was living in Oakland at the time.
George Archibeque July 15, 2012 at 03:38 am
George Archibeque
I had just returned from Vietnam in 1971 and was stationed at NAS Alameda and upon discharge had hired on at the rework facility , on Feb 7, 1973 I was laid off and had gone to the base to get my tool box,that night and when I left I went down by the beach and was coming dowv Lincoln from Park St. at about 8:00 pm . I was stopped at the light a Lincoln and Chestnut when I heard a very loud roar that was so loud that I put my car in park and got out of my car because I thought something was going to hit me , and I look up and see this fire ball roarind out of the sky , which at the time I thought was a meteor , then I hear an explosion and a ball of fire , and I think wow, that was close . I drive down to Central and can see four floors exposed and burning and a woman screaming from the top floors , the front wall was leaning at almost a forty five degree angle and there was a woman on her knees by the front door . I was going to run and grab her but a neighbor tells me that wall is coming down don`t do it , and about that time a young man runs from around the corner and drags her off , Seconds later the whole front falls clear out to the sidewalk , the neighbor and me had to run across the street . My car that I parked across the street was trapped there for two days . I ended up staying in Alameda and have lived two blocks away for 33 years , and every time I walk by that builging I remember that day like it was yesterday. .
Sam Nell July 16, 2012 at 02:10 pm
http://alamedajetcrash.com
doug wilder December 2, 2012 at 06:23 am
My family had gone to Front Room Pizza on Webster that night for dinner and were returning to the east end of town on Santa Clara. We saw the flames and me (16 and my brother (19) told our dad to stop so we could check it out. Who lets their children run to a disaster scene? But he did. The site was two doors down from my aunt and uncle's apt and only a couple blocks from our high school. It was the biggest thing to happen in Alameda until Joe Martin brought a shotgun to school
Lanny Giorgi December 7, 2012 at 07:24 pm
I was working upstairs at the old Library. I heard the explosion and ran down to see what happened. I didn't know it was an airplane. For some reason the building had exploded and burned. The next day a young man in a suit came in and wanted to pay for lost library books. I told him to wait until he got a notice because they might turn up. He said he KNEW they wouldn't turn up as he had lived in that building and friends had dragged him out to dinner and unknowingly were saving his life.
I couldn't charge him for the books.
Michael Lambert January 2, 2013 at 10:08 pm
I was driving on Lincoln street when the plane crashed into the apartment building. The impact pushed my car into oncoming traffic lanes. In the time it took me to drive the 2 blocks to the site the building was engulfed in flames. There was nothing anybody could do except watch as the building burned. The fire burned most of the night. When I got off work at the NAS Alameda air terminal the following morning, they told me that I would be assigned to recovery on Friday morning at the accident site. Friday when I arrived the area had a stench of burning flesh. The ground still warm from the fires the previous day. We searched throughout the day for human remains and aircraft parts. Many plane parts were found, When I noticed softer, hairy flesh I was removed from the area so that others could recover the remains.
I have never talked about this to anyone. and do not know if I can still today. The stench of burning flesh still today brings me to my knees. It has now been almost 40 years, and the memory seems like just yesterday. As I write this, the tears build in my eyes.
Garry L Newkirk January 8, 2013 at 05:50 am
I was Mate of the Day at The Naval Air Base Medical Dispensary on the night of the crash. The Chief of the Day had gone home and I was on the roof grabbing some fresh air with a couple of fellow Corpsmen when we looked out over Alameda and saw black JP-5 smoke billowing in the distance. I came down to phones ringing off the hook. One person asked if we had "lost any planes over there?" I told him we didn't keep the planes in the dispensary and perhaps he should call the tower... I thought it was a plane from either the Oakland or SF airports. When I got the call that it was a Navy plane I called the Flight Surgeon on Duty to come in and organized a party of Hospital Corpsmen and one flight surgeon that just happened in into the Pillbox and headed out towards the smoke. When we arrived on scene we set up a rescue area just yards from the flames... more to come...
Robert W.Long January 15, 2013 at 02:42 am
Robert Long
I was 10 years old when this happened watching Adam- 12 in our living room with my Mom and Dad we heard a loud screeching sound, then an explosion that actually shook our house on Broadway Street. When we looked out of our kitchen window we saw a huge fire ball rising into the sky, we then drove down to the scene. It was horrific. People screaming and total chaos. I remember watching the apartment falling down in flames. If I remember correctly I think they uses the cafeteria at our school .St Joseph's as a temporary crisis center and morgue for the victims. I was young but will never forget that night.
Oscar ATC3 February 3, 2013 at 02:35 am
I was one of the navy air traffic controllers working the night of the crash. My duties that night consisted of working with the air traffic in our area of responsibility around NAS Alameda. That night we had, to my best recollection, about 3-4 naval jets working in a "touch and go" pattern, as well as scheduled arriving and departing aircraft of ll types. As our active runways faced west and our attention was focused looking in that direction it was a few minutes before we noticed the ball of fire behind us (East) in the city of Alameda. However, as the active a/c, I did begin to receive calls from the area civilian air controllers, as well as the other wingman's jet asking if I had been contacted by the other jet that eventually crashed. However at no time did the jet that crashed ever make contact with NAS Alameda.
As the jet crashed less that a few miles from the base it was falsely reported in the news media that the jet was operating at NAS Alameda. It was just one of those things that the jet fell out of the sky and crashed near the base. Oscar ATC3
Carol Parker February 3, 2013 at 02:01 pm
All of your first-person accounts are so informative. Thank you for your comments. The 40th anniversary of the crash is just mere days away now. It is still hard to believe it was that many years ago. I think about it every time I drive by the crash site. I hope others will continue to post their remembrances of the event.
sara zehnder-wallace February 7, 2013 at 10:24 pm
Of course I remember that night very well!
I was nine years old and talking on the phone, the old fashion kind that dialed and plugged in the wall. We lived in a large house in the Gold Coast with a long hallway designated specifically just for this activity, and I had taken out my hamster to let her run about a bit. Unfortunately I forgot all about her as I gabbed then suddenly remembered her. Just as I yelled out, "Tammy!!" the plane hit, rocking all 8,000 square feet of that house and sending a noise through the rooms that was loud even for a family with seven kids. I don't remember what I thought at that moment but we were all home alone, an especially rare occurrence as my parents never went out. I remember my brothers raced up the stairs to the attic where we had a great view of the flames about a half mile away. Sirens and explosions. Pretty exciting stuff for a little kid! We watched for a long time not knowing what had happened until the next day. I went to bed a sad little girl that night, not for the crash but for my hamster, Tammy, whom I never saw again!

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Harve Coats June 14, 2013 at 09:17 pm
Woke me from a dead sleep. Sounded like 6 or 9 gun shots north of Melrose on Maitland DR.
David Howard June 15, 2013 at 02:08 pm
APD said they found no evidence of gun shots and suspect fireworks.Read More http://www.action-alameda-news.com/2013/06/09/fourth-of-july-public-service-announcement/
JSanders June 17, 2013 at 11:55 am
When they build that high density development on the Harbor Bay Club site with 25% low incomeRead More housing requirement, Bay Farm will be hearing a lot more gun shots at night.
Analisa Harangozo (Editor) June 12, 2013 at 11:42 am
So sad to see. Did you report this to East Bay Regional Park District? I provided the number in yourRead More last posting.
Lorraine Sarullo June 12, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Yes, I reported it to the EBRP staff who happened to be nearby at the beach. I also reported it toRead More the warden of Fish and Wildlife in Sacramento and the warden of the local territory. The local warden told me yesterday that he will be patrolling the area, but I did not get to speak to him today (only left both wardens a voicemail message).
Analisa Harangozo (Editor) June 12, 2013 at 04:11 pm
Nice, thanks for the update, and sharing these posts with us, Lorraine. If it is a person behind allRead More of this, hopefully he/she will get caught soon.
Carol Parker June 12, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Anonymous tip to the fire department?
quietneeded June 12, 2013 at 04:17 pm
Leaving a note to them is a bad idea if it really is a illegal operation. So many ways that can goRead More wrong. Just call the police dept. Leave a tip. Simple and safe.
Analisa Harangozo (Editor) June 13, 2013 at 09:03 am
Agree with Carol. Perhaps an anonymous tip to Alameda Fire or Alameda Police.
Alex Gronke (Editor) June 11, 2013 at 07:35 am
My condolences to Mort's family. This was a man who had a rich, full life. Thank you for sharing.
Nay June 11, 2013 at 09:24 am
Given the targeted harvesting of parts, this is not a "times are hard and food is scarce"Read More issue. It's greedy, ignorant, and yes it's disgusting and disrespectful to nature. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2012/01/17/manta-rays-endangered-by-sudden-demand-from-chinese-medicine/
Lorraine Sarullo June 11, 2013 at 04:13 pm
Thank you both (Nay and Analisa) for the information. Maybe I got the name of the park serviceRead More mixed up. It was the beach area around Grand St.
Lorraine Sarullo June 11, 2013 at 11:18 pm
I contacted Crown Beach (part of the EBRP). They checked into the matter with Fish and WildlifeRead More (previously Fish and Game), to see if there was any wrongdoing. On the surface of things, it seems the wings (fins) are the edible part of the ray. And apparently, the way regulations are written it may not be even be considered littering! So, however inhumane, disrespectful, selfish, gruesome it may seem, there may not have been any fishing laws broken. Although, when I spoke with the warden of Fish and Wildlife he said he will be looking into the matter. To voice your opinion and propose changes to regulation, you can write a letter to and attend a Fish and Game Commission town hall meeting here is the link: http://www.fgc.ca.gov/contact/ and http://www.fgc.ca.gov/meetings/2013/index.aspx I plan on writing to suggest regulation against polluting public beaches with unused portions of the catch from fishing and also ask for recommendations on limiting the catch on fish that only have small percentage of edible parts (such as the rays). I would welcome any help in a letter writing campaign, the contact information is listed on the link provided above. Many Thanks.