A co-founder of Pacific Southwest Airlines, 99-year-old Leo Leonard is determined to absolve PSA employees of any blame for the disastrous crash of Sept. 25, 1978 in San Diego.
From the day of the catastrophe, Sept. 25, 1978, there’s been speculation over the precise cause of the deadly collision between a PSA jet and a Cessna over North Park.“Air traffic control,” he said. “Air traffic control cleared PSA to land, knowing there was an aircraft it had on the radar in the landing pattern.”A co-founder of Pacific Southwest Airlines, Leonard is 99 years old.
At 9:02 a.m., PSA Flight 182, flying 2,600 feet over San Diego, descended onto a rising Cessna 172. The smaller plane disintegrated and the impact crippled the controls of the jet, a Boeing 727. Both men aboard the Cessna and all 135 aboard the PSA jetliner died. The wreckage plummeted onto the homes and streets of North Park, killing seven more.
One person they did not hear from: Leonard. An Iowa native who moved to San Diego shortly before the United States’ entry into World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Corps, serving in the Pacific. Postwar, he remained a professional aviator. In 1949, he co-piloted PSA’s first flight, a hop between San Diego and Oakland.
One of the report’s four authors, though, had issued a blistering dissent. “I disagree sharply with the majority,” wrote Francis H. McAdams, “for the reason that the inadequacies of the air traffic control system were not cited as a probable cause.” Badali started flying for PSA a month after Flight’s 182’s crash. He said the disaster “was always in the back of everybody’s mind,” as most employees knew someone who had died that day. Within this close circle, many agreed with Leonard, insisting that their colleagues had been unfairly maligned.
“In this case,” he wrote, “both aircraft should have remained under positive radar separation since it was available and could have provided safe separation. The failure to do so, therefore, must be considered as causal.” Leonard also notes, as did the NTSB report, that the Cessna had drifted out of its approved flight path. And he points to the tower’s message at 9:01:07, clearing PSA for landing.
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