Close to Home
I’ve been wanting to post something about the jet crash that happened on Monday but haven’t been able to get to it until now. Several times a week I drive on 805 by Air Station Miramar, very close to where the jet went down. (The Ice Town skating rink, where my daughter trains, is two miles from Miramar). I’ve thought a lot about the Yoon family, who lost four family members (and three generations) in the crash. Their loss is so big that I don’t know what to say. I’ve also thought about the pilot, who survived. In many ways he’s in the more difficult position and I don’t envy him at all.
In reading about this event I also found reference to another San Diego air crash that happened on September 25, 1978. This one was very dramatic, a mid-air plane crash between a PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines) plane and a small Cessna, in the residential neighborhood of North Park in which 144 people died. North Park is very close to the University Heights neighborhood where I live now.
At the time of this crash I was living in Philadelphia. I had just moved there as a transfer student to go the the Philadelphia College of Art. I have no recollection of this event. I guess I was wrapped up in my life as a student, oblivious to things that were outside my orbit. I’m shocked that this one went right past me. It shows me how I identify more strongly with things that touch me more closely.
