• On 19 November 1958, an
F4D Skyray fighter jet overshot the runway and was struck by a southbound passenger train, the
San Diegan. Train No. 74 hit the F4D at 75 miles (121 km)-per-hour. All three locomotive units and cars #3430, #3165, #3144, #1399, #3100, #3094, #3082 derailed after hitting the F4D. No fatalities and only a few injuries resulted. • On 25 June 1965, a U.S. Air Force
Boeing C-135A bound for
Okinawa crashed just after takeoff at MCAS El Toro, killing all eighty-four on board. • On 23 January 1967, two
Douglas A-4 Skyhawk jets were wing-tipping on approach. Pilot Frank Gambelli had lost his radio in a rainstorm, and he was wing-tipping with Pilot James Powell over Leisure World on approach. Visibility was practically zero. The two jets collided and both pilots ejected. Pilot Powell ejected safely, but was thrown into the side of a building when his parachute caught on the top of the building and was slammed into it and died. Pilot Gambelli landed next to St. Nicholas Catholic Church just at the end of service. GSgt H.W. Oviatt raced out of the church and took pilot Gambelli back to the base. The wreckage of the jets crashed onto two buildings in Leisure World, killing four people on the ground. • On 30 July 1970, a
Lockheed Martin KC-130F of
VMGR-352 crashed and burned during a maximum effort landing, killing 4 of 5 crewmen on board. • On 6 June 1971, a midair collision occurred between
Hughes Airwest Flight 706, a
Douglas DC-9 jetliner, and a Marine Corps F-4B Phantom being flown to MCAS El Toro, claiming 50 lives. The DC-9, with 44 passengers and 5 crew members aboard, impacted into a remote canyon approximately three miles north of
Duarte, California along with one of the crew members of the fighter whose wreckage was found in another canyon approximately .75 miles southeast of the DC-9's crash site. One of the Marines in the fighter survived the accident. • On 4 July 1986, 21-year-old Marine Lance Corporal,
Howard Foote Jr., an aviation mechanic at El Toro, took an A-4 Skyhawk on an unauthorized 90-minute joyride over southern California. Foote, an accomplished glider pilot, was despondent after learning that due to a medical condition, he would never be able to fly in the Marines. He landed the aircraft safely and was subsequently discharged under less than honorable conditions after serving months in confinement. • On 12 Feb 1987, a
CH-46E helicopter from
HMM-764,
MAG-46 crashed, shortly after takeoff, into a steep, brush-covered ridge between Bell and Trabuco canyons. All three crewmembers on board, Major Dudley Urban, Major William Anderson, and Staff Sergeant Bradley Baird, died in the crash. • On 24 April 1988, Marine Corps Colonel Jerry Cadick, then commanding officer of
MAG-11, was performing a tactical aerial demonstration at the MCAS El Toro Air Show before a crowd of 300,000 when he crashed his
F/A-18 Hornet at the bottom of a loop that was too close to the ground. The aircraft was in a nose-high attitude, but still carrying too much energy toward the ground when it impacted at more than . Col. Cadick was subjected to extremely high
G-forces that resulted in his face making contact with the control stick and sustaining serious injury. He broke his arm, elbow and ribs, exploded a
vertebra and collapsed a lung. Col. Cadick survived and retired from the Marine Corps. The crashed F/A-18 remained largely intact but was beyond repair. • On 22 January 1991, Marine Corps Colonel James Sabow apparently committed suicide amid allegations of base corruption, specifically using military aircraft for personal use. His family and friends denied he committed suicide and pointed out that Col. Sabow had pledged to fight the charges against him just minutes before his death in phone conversations with other officers. According to a 1996 lawsuit by his family, Sabow was murdered because he threatened to expose an authorized
covert operation at El Toro involving some of his fellow officers,
CIA-sponsored airlifts to Central and South America, running arms and drugs. • On 2 May 1993, during the 1993 MCAS El Toro airshow, an
F-86 Sabre crashed on the runway after failing to pull out of a vertical loop. The F-86 pilot, James A. Gregory, died on impact. No one was hurt on the ground. The airshow continued. Normally the F-86 performed with a
MiG-15, but the pilot of the MiG-15 was ill that day and the F-86 was doing a solo run. ==Notable events==