Conflict and coordination in responding to aviation disaster : the San Diego and Gander experiences compared.

"A paper prepared for the Second Biannual Conference of the International Association for Conflict Management, Athens, Georgia, June 11-14, 1989"

Includes references

On September 25, 1978 a mid-air collision occurred between a light plane and a commercial 727 jet airliner over San Diego, California. Each plane plummeted to the ground and 151 people were killed. Crash fatalities from the jetliner's impact included seven lives on the ground. The jet also destroyed seven homes, and set 22 more on fire. More than seven years later, on December 12, 1985, a charter jet transporting American military people home for the holidays lost power and crashed near Gander, Newfoundland. As the plane descended it missed cottages and a navigation beacon, but in the end harmed no people or structure on the ground. This study is not about saving lives but is about other aspects of post-crash emergency response and recovery operations. Each incident is first described separately and later, dimensions of each are compared and contrasted paying special attention to the differences jurisdictional size and resources may have made in each case