At least two of the three crew members were killed when two planes collided while attempting to land at a local airport in Northern Californiaon Thursday. officials said.
A clash occurred at the Watsonville Municipal Airport shortly before 3:00 pm, according to a tweet from the City of Watsonville. City-owned airports do not have control towers to direct the takeoff and landing of aircraft.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the twin-engine Cessna 340 had two people on board at the time of the crash, while the single-engine Cessna 152 had only one pilot on board. I was. Authorities say multiple fatalities were reported, but it was not immediately clear if anyone survived.
When the crash occurred, the pilots were on their final approach to the airport. the FAA said in a statement. The FAA andthe National Transportation Safety Boardare investigating the crash, with no immediate details available.
There were no casualties on the ground. According to the website, the airport has four runways and more than 300 aircraft. It handles more than 55,000 flights per year and is often used by recreational aviation and agricultural operations.
Watsonville, near Monterey Bay, is located approximately 160 kilometers south ofSan Francisco.
Photos and videos of the scene posted on social media showed the wreckage of a small plane on the lawn near the airport. One photo showed a plume of smoke visible from a street near the airport.
Photos from Watsonville City showed damage to a small building at the airport with firefighters at the scene.
The plane was about 200 feet (61 meters) high when it crashed, an eyewitness he told Santa Cruz Sentinel.
As Frankie Herrera passed the airport, he saw a twin-engine plane roll sharply to the right and hit the wing of a smaller aircraft. He is not far from home, he told the newspaper.
The twin-engine plane continued to fly, but "we were struggling," Herrera said, and flames were visible on the other side of the airport.
Watsonville Municipal Airport management was unavailable for telephone interviews in the hours following the crash. According to the City of Watsonville website, the airport accounts for approximately 40% of general aviation activity in the Monterey Bay area.
The Watsonville Police Department called the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, but the dispatcher had no information.
Elsewhere in California on Thursday Two other pilots were also injured in the plane crash that occurred.
A 65-year-old San Diego man suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries after a single-engine plane crashed on the road near a busy highway overpass in El Cajon, officials said. Stated.
The plane reportedly hit his SUV, but no one was injured on the ground in the city about 20 miles (32 km) northeast of downtown San Diego.
Later, at Camarillo Airport in Ventura County, about 60 miles (97 km) from downtown Los Angeles, a pilot of an ultralight aircraft crashed upside down into a building and was seriously injured.
