For What It’s Worth, 1986 Is History : TRAGEDIES

An Aeromexico DC-9 collided with a single-engine Piper Archer plane and crashed into a neighborhood in Cerritos on Aug. 31, killing 82 people, including 15 on the ground. Indications that the small plane was flying in restricted airspace without permission raised questions about the overcrowded skies above Los Angeles International Airport, including the radar capabilities of air-traffic controllers as well as the need for private aircraft to carry transponders so they can be tracked.

A botched jewelry store holdup in Beverly Hills on June 23 resulted in a 13 1/2-hour siege that left the Van Cleef & Arpels manager and two employees shot to death and a 22-year-old Las Vegas man, Steve Livaditis, under arrest for murder.

A Starline Tours charter bus plunged into the icy Walker River in Mono County on May 30, killing 21 elderly Southern Californians and injuring 22 others returning from a Reno gambling holiday. The driver was later charged with manslaughter.

With more than 2,000 AIDS cases, Los Angeles County acquired the grim distinction this year of ranking second (to New York) among metropolitan areas in the incidence of the still-incurable disease.

A Southside Serial Killer Task Force of police detectives and sheriff’s investigators sought a man suspected of murdering at least 17 women over the last two years, many of them prostitutes. Also at large: A gunman suspected of at least eight early-morning killings on the streets in and around Skid Row.

Fires set by arsonists on April 29 and Sept. 3 destroyed 200,000 books as well as numerous valuable collections in the stately, 60-year-old Central Library, forcing its indefinite closure. Original cost estimates to renovate and refurbish the library skyrocketed $44.8 million by year’s end to $161.5 million.

Emergency shelter needs for the homeless increased 50% in Los Angeles, the biggest jump among 25 cities surveyed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Local officials estimated 33,000 people live on the streets of the city.

Phoebe Hue-Ru Ho, a 7-year-old second-grader kidnaped in South Pasadena on Dec. 11 while walking to school, was found murdered a week later in a ditch in Riverside County.