At the least two individuals are useless after two small planes collided in Northern California whereas making an attempt to land at an area airport, officers mentioned.
The planes crashed at Watsonville Municipal Airport shortly earlier than 3pm native time, in keeping with a tweet from town of Watsonville. Town-owned airport doesn't have a management tower to direct plane touchdown and taking off.
There have been two folks aboard a twin-engine Cessna 340 and solely the pilot aboard a single-engine Cessna 152 throughout the crash, in keeping with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Officers say a number of fatalities have been reported however it was not instantly clear whether or not anybody survived.
The pilots have been on their last approaches to the airport earlier than the collision, the FAA mentioned in a press release. The FAA and the Nationwide Transportation Security Board (NTSB), which didn't instantly have further particulars, are investigating the crash.
Nobody on the bottom was injured. The airport has 4 runways and is residence to greater than 300 plane, in keeping with its web site. It handles greater than 55,000 operations a 12 months and is used typically for leisure planes and agriculture companies.
Watsonville, close to the Monterey Bay, is about 100 miles (160 kilometres) south of San Francisco.
Pictures and movies posted on social media confirmed the wreckage of 1 small aircraft in a grassy area by the airport. One image confirmed a plume of smoke seen from a road close to the airport.
A photograph from town of Watsonville confirmed harm to a small constructing on the airport, with firefighters on the scene.
The planes have been about 200 toes (61 metres) within the air after they crashed, a witness informed the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Franky Herrera was driving previous the airport when he noticed the twin-engine aircraft financial institution laborious to the correct and hit the wing of the smaller plane, which “simply spiralled down and crashed” close to the sting of the airfield and never removed from properties, he informed the newspaper.
The dual-engine plane stored flying however “it was struggling”, Mr Herrera mentioned, after which he noticed flames on the different aspect of the airport.
The supervisor of the Watsonville Municipal Airport was unavailable for a telephone interview within the hours after the crash. The airport accounts for about 40% of all common aviation actions within the Monterey Bay space, in keeping with the Metropolis of Watsonville’s web site.
The Watsonville Police Division referred calls to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Workplace, the place a dispatcher had no data.
Two different pilots additionally have been harm in plane crashes elsewhere in California on Thursday.
A 65-year-old San Diego man obtained accidents that have been main however not life-threatening when his single-engine aircraft crashed on a road close to a busy freeway overpass in El Cajon, authorities mentioned.
The aircraft reportedly struck an SUV however no person on the bottom was harm within the metropolis practically 20 miles (32 kilometres) northeast of downtown San Diego.
Later, the pilot of an ultralight plane was critically injured when it crashed the other way up on a constructing on the Camarillo Airport in Ventura County, about 60 miles (97 kilometres) from downtown Los Angeles.