“Please remain in your classrooms until further notified. A plane has just crashed on the football field”
On May 12, 1988, a single engine plane was forced to make a crash landing on the baseball field at Bishop O’Connell High School.
"Examining the wreckage, safety workers make sure that the downed plane is not in danger of catching on fire"
Pilot Edward Sanchez and passenger Dick Sheeringa were on a business trip from Toronto to Raleigh. They had planned to refuel at National Airport, but the plane’s gas gauges malfunctioned - incorrectly showing more fuel than was in the tank - and the plane began to lose altitude.
Witnesses said the plane touched down in the middle of the baseball field, crushed a wooden bench, and maneuvered around fleeing students before crashing into a chain link fence bordering Underwood Street.
Coach Ed Iacobucci was playing softball with his class when the plane crashed. What he and his students saw that day was reported in the Washington Post and the school yearbook.
“The plane clipped some trees and headed for us. It just missed the girls by two or three feet…The plane was heading right for one kid. I yelled, ‘Get out of the way, Michael!’, it missed him by a couple of feet. Michael said he was going to church tonight.” - Ed Iacobucci, Washington Post
“I was running right next to the airplane. I had to pull my friend down, the wing was right beside my face.” -Sophomore Rosemary Pellegrino, Bishop O'Connell Yearbook
Luckily there were no injuries to students, and both the pilot and passenger were able to walk away from the crash with only minor injuries.
Headline and photos are from the 1988 Bishop O'Connell Yearbook. The Center for Local History has a large collection of Arlington yearbooks both in print and digitized. To learn more, visit https://library.arlingtonva.libguides.com/yearbooks
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