USA: Two Planes Crash Mid-air Then Plunge Into The Ocean

Two small planes with three people believed to be aboard collided over the ocean just outside the port of Los Angeles. There was no sign of survivors after hours of searching.

The planes were a Beechcraft and a Super Decathlon acrobatic craft, according to officials.

Two men ages 61 and 81 were aboard one plane, and a 72-year-old woman was aboard the other plane, Coast Guard Capt. Jennifer Williams said.

Searchers found wreckage, including a pilot’s logbook, from the Beechcraft plane that was carrying the two men.

The plane flown by the woman is missing, and air traffic controllers saw two aircraft apparently run into each other on radar, leading authorities to conclude they must have collided.

The crash site was near the Angels Gate light, a lighthouse at the San Pedro Breakwater that is on the National Register of Historic Places. The area is popular for flight students.

Fire and lifeguard boats and rescue divers swarmed the area. “They found both a partial tail number and then a second tail number,” Los Angeles County lifeguard Captain Ken Haskett said.

The area of the collision is about two miles outside the entrance to the harbor, where water depths were 80 feet to 90 feet.

Richard Garnett, chief flight instructor with the Long Beach Flying Club, said the pilots practice in an area that is 10 to 20 square miles and at altitudes ranging from 1,000 to 4,000 feet. On a typical day, there will be three or four planes in the air at the same time.

Friday’s mid-air collision was not the first in the area.

In 2001, four people died when two Cessna airplanes carrying instructors and students collided 1,000 feet above the harbor.

In 1986, two small planes flown by students collided. But the aircraft managed to return to their airports, and the four people on board escaped injury.

Pilots communicate at two different radio frequencies — one for above 2,000 feet and the other below, said Reed Novisoff, chief pilot at Pacific Air Flight School.

“People are very diligent about reporting their positions,” Novisoff said. “It’s very safe out there.”