The NRCC Did It
On Sunday morning, I was driving someone else's car (long story). The car radio was tuned to KFI AM 640, but was getting a lot of static. I assumed that there was a problem with the car's AM radio reception (KFI is one of the strongest stations in this area, so if that station isn't coming in, one would assume that none of the AM stations is coming in.)

This morning, I discovered that the problem was not in the car radio:

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A San Gabriel Valley couple died in the crash of their single-engine airplane Sunday when their Cessna 182 severed a support wire on a radio station tower in La Mirada, authorities said.

Both the 900-foot-high tower and the airplane came down shortly before 10 a.m. Sunday, said news reporters at KFI Radio. The talk station was knocked off the air for about an hour after the plane destroyed the tower.

The tangled wreckage lay crumpled in an industrial parking lot in the 16800 block of Trojan Way near Firestone Boulevard, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies.

The unidentified husband and wife were killed, said Deputy Luis Castro at the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau in Monterey Park....

By Sunday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board had investigators on the scene. Pieces of the plane were taken away for investigation, but the crumpled red-and-white striped radio tower lay bent and twisted, like Christmas ribbon, on the black asphalt. Deputies stood guard.

The plane took off only minutes before from El Monte Airport and the pilot intended to land at the Fullerton Airport, deputies said. It was reported the couple intended to pick up two additional passengers in Fullerton but their final destination was not known....

The tower that fell was the taller of KFI's two-tower array, deputies said. The station is licensed to La Mirada and, although the studios are located in Burbank, the transmitter and towers remain in La Mirada....

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When reporting the story this morning, Bill Handel denied that competing radio stations caused the loss of transmission. I have my suspicions over who is responsible.