Two planes crashed mid-air in Northern California Thursday afternoon. Three people were killed, according to CNN.
The planes, a twin-engine Cessna 340 and a single-engine Cessna 152, were both trying to land at Watsonville Municipal Airport.
Three people were reportedly on board the two planes.
The Cessna 340 crashed into the wing of the Cessna 152, and the smaller aircraft went down, according to the FAA and a witness.
A man driving to the airport saw the two planes collide at about 200 feet up in the sky.
“The smaller plane just spiraled down and crashed,” Franky Herrera, an off-duty officer, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
The plane landed close to a residential area but no injuries occurred to residents on the ground.
Herrera reported that the larger plane continued to fall but then he witnessed an explosion and flames near the airport.
The airport, which is owned by the city, has four runways. It has a lot of traffic, mostly recreational and agricultural business flights, and houses 300 planes.
Reportedly, it doesn’t have a control tower.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident.
The mid-air collision was one of three plane crashes in California on Thursday. In the morning, a 65-year-old resident of San Diego was severely injured when his plane crashed onto a street, striking a vehicle on a busy freeway in El Cajon. No one on the ground was hurt and the pilot was expected to survive.
Later in the day, another plane crashed onto a building at the Camarillo Airport in Ventura County, critically injuring the pilot.
On the same day, an ultralight aircraft crashed upside down on a building at the Camarillo Airport in Ventura County. The pilot was critically injured.