Authorities seeking witnesses to mid-air collision that killed 3
It's a strange and tragic headline, two planes colliding in mid-air, three people now dead. It happened just before 9 a.m. Saturday over Boulder County.
According to FlightAware.com, one of those planes took off from Platte Valley Airpark in Hudson at 8:39 am Saturday. Flight information is not available for the other.
"We heard the whack, my girlfriend saw it in the sky and there was debris that came off the airplane, is what she said," said Zane Bishop. The downed planes narrowly missed his Longmont home.
"When it hit the ground there, it shook the house here," said Bishop. "It was loud when that plane hit."
One of the aircrafts, a Cessna 172 with two people on board, crashed in the field across from Bishop's house.
"It took us a short amount of time and we located the other plane about a mile down the road," said Commander Jason Oehlkers with the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.
The other plane, a home-built Sonex Xenos carrying 1 person, landed in a group of trees.
"You see a wreck like that, and you know nobody's walking away from that," said Bishop.
The victims have not yet been identified by the Boulder County Coroner's Office. According to a sheriff's deputy at the scene, all three are men from the Front Range.
The NTSB is handling the investigation into the cause of the crash. They say the Cessna was flying northbound on a Mc-Air Flight School training flight from the Rocky Mountain Airport in Denver and the Sonex was flying west from Platte Valley Airpark In Hudson. At about 7,000 feet, the Cessna turned East and the planes collided. The NTSB says the weather was good at that time.
"A preliminary assessment of the aircraft is that neither was equipped with a collision avoidant system or any kind of display in the cockpit to alert the pilot to other aircraft in the vicinity, and neither aircraft is required by the FAA to have such a system" said Mike Folkerts, Air Safety Investigator with the NTSB.
Going forward, the NTSB will examine the planes' flight paths and viewing angles, as well as the pilot's experience and medical history. A preliminary report will be released in the next two weeks.
Niwot Road was closed for several hours as first responders were on scene, reopening at 4 pm Saturday.
The Sheriff's Office is looking for witnesses, if you saw or heard the crash, please call 303-441-4763.