Three days before Christmas in 1994 a Westwind landed in La Verne, Calif., east of Los Angeles, to drop off the mother of brothers who ran In-and-Out Burgers, a popular fast-food chain in California. They had been on a family trip and had their hunting gear on board. The Westwind took off for John Wayne Airport, a short ride south from La Verne. It crashed on short final to Runway 19R, diving vertically into a parking lot near the airport. It exploded and shot off ammunition in all directions. It had encountered a Boeing 757 wake.
The article highlights the severe danger of wake turbulence, particularly from Boeing 757s, citing multiple fatal incidents.
Two separate crashes near John Wayne Airport in the mid-1990s involved smaller aircraft (a Westwind and a Cessna 152) diving vertically after encountering 757 wake during critical phases of flight, resulting in fatalities.
Wake turbulence poses an elevated risk at low altitudes, where it can linger and strike aircraft when they are slow and most vulnerable, as demonstrated by incidents like the King Air encounter in Salt Lake City.
Three days before Christmas in 1994 a Westwind landed in La Verne, Calif., east of Los Angeles, to drop off the mother of brothers who ran In-and-Out Burgers, a popular fast-food chain in California. They had been on a family trip and had their hunting gear on board.
Photo by Patrick Moran
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