Ceremony to Honor PVE Victims of Plane Crash

A memorial service will be held in Cerritos today honoring victims of a deadly plane crash that occurred exactly 25 years ago, in which a private Piper Archer carrying a family from Palos Verdes Estates crashed into a plane on its final approach to Los Angeles International Airport.

The ceremony will be held at 11:30 a.m. at the Cerritos Air Disaster Memorial in the Cerritos Sculpture Garden which is located in the Civic Center. The remembrance will include a brief formal ceremony with the Cerritos City Council, a reading of the victims' names, a prayer for the victims and their loved ones and a moment of silence.

The two planes collided exactly 25 years ago today about 6,500 feet above Cerritos, leaving a total of 67 people on the two planes dead, along with 15 more people on the ground.

The Piper crashed into an athletic field at Cerritos Elementary School, the other plane, an Aeromexico DC-9 Flight 498, plummeted nose-first into a neighborhood around Ashworth and Reva Places and Holmes Avenue.

Investigators eventually blamed the crash on air traffic control failures and errors by the pilot of the small plane. Dozens of lawsuits were filed, with millions of dollars in damages paid out.

City News Service contributed to this report.