CORONA, Calif.; Four people were killed when two private planes collided approximately one mile from AJO-Corona Municipal Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The crash was reported about 3:35 p.m. near Auto Center Drive and Wardlow Road, which parallels the Riverside (91) Freeway about a mile southwest of the airport. The FAA has confirmed that four people died in the crash, but there are conflicting accounts as to whether the fatalities all occurred on the ground or in the air. FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said two people died in the collision and two people died on the ground, but he emphasized the information was preliminary. "We're told there were two fatalities from the collision, as well as two fatalities on the ground," Kenitzer said. "One, we're told, was in a car and one was walking." However, reports from the scene indicated all four victims were on the airplanes. Kenitzer said he is based in Seattle, and the information he reported came from FAA Operations personnel based in Los Angeles. According to witnesses, there was not a fire. Lourdes Fajarda of Carona said she was driving home on a frontage road next to the freeway when she saw the flying planes crash into each other. "One (pilot) had to see the other one -- why didn't one dive up or dive down -- they just hit," she said. "One ... broke into pieces and the one heading north went straight down ... whoever was in the planes, you see them flying, you see them colliding and you know there are people in there." The Corona airport is for general aviation and does not have a control tower, which means the pilots were under visual flight rules, CBS 2 reported. The airport remained opened after the crash. One plane was reported to be a Cessna 150. Another witness, Hector Hernandez, said he saw bodies falling out of the sky, and that one of the planes plummeted to earth while the other broke apart. "It was ugly, scary," he told CBS 2. "One (body) crashed into the top of a Ford Mustang. Another fell not too far behind that one onto the parking lot floor. I don't want to go into details, but it was ugly." Virgil Rodriguez, a manager at the nearby Corona Nissan, told local broadcasters that sales staff and customers were outside when they heard a crash and saw debris come raining down. "It was like an explosion in the air and we seen debris flying all over the place," he said. "We all ran inside, everybody just ran for cover because everything was flying everywhere. I believe a body landed on top of a car, one in the middle of the street and the plane landed in the back of our building and crushed a couple of cars." "At first we thought it was only one (plane), but we after everything came down, there was one in the back of our building and one in the middle of the street," Rodriguez said, adding that the planes appeared to be Cessnas. Rodriguez said bodies landed all over the dealership. "We got four bodies on our property -- two in the plane, one in the driveway and one on the car," according to local broadcast reports. Traffic on the 91 Freeway has not been affected, the TV station reported, although motorists were advised to avoid the area while the crash was being investigated.
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Added: Feb 17, 2008 |
| Category: News |
Author: barnesy |
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