LOS ANGELES — The day the plane fell from the sky, Eva Avalos was sipping coffee under her Mulberry tree.
Metal flashed in the corner of her eye as the Cessna 182 hit the ground in front of her house and exploded. The tree went up in flames and the heat singed her hair. Her two dogs vanished. She ran to the back of the house with her grandson as the fire spread, then crawled under the chain-link to her neighbor's yard.
Avalos, 68, had just a few bruises from that day in November 2020 and found her Chihuahua Juanita and shih tzu-poodle Max hiding safely in their dog house. But the pilot was killed, and she carries deep emotional scars that rattle her every time she hears the buzz of a plane approaching the runway of Whiteman Airport, just 50 yards from her Pacoima home.
