Small Craft Collisions In Crossfire

The safety of smaller aircraft is in question Wednesday after the second collision this week between two privately-owned planes.

The latest accident happened Tuesday afternoon over the Chicago suburb of Zion. Three people were killed in the crash, including a popular local radio host named Bob Collins.

Following a mid-air collision, one of the planes slammed into the roof of a hospital, the other into a nearby intersection.

Windows blew out of the top floor of Midwestern Regional Medical Center in Zion, Illinois, as the plane crashed into the structure. Two hospital workers were slightly burned and the hospital was evacuated, said hospital president Roger Cary.

The other plane, a four-seat Cessna 172, crashed into a nearby street. One person died in that plane.

"I saw both planes collide. It looked like they were pulling up, trying to avoid each other," said witness Leslie Mussared. "It sounded like the propellers hit together. And then I saw one dive like it just lost all power."

Midwestern Regional Medical Center Chairman Richard J Stephenson told CBS News Early Show Anchor Bryant Gumbel the crash looked unavoidable.

"They looked like they tried to avoid each other, at the same time they both pulled up," Stephenson said. "It was just horrifying."

Preliminary reports indicated both planes were approaching the Waukegan Airport, near the site of the collision.

Zion is about 45 miles north of downtown Chicago, near the Illinois-Wisconsin line.

Collins, who was three weeks short of his 58th birthday, was an avid flyer and a motorcycle enthusiast. He came to WGN Radio in 1974 and had been host of Chicago's top-rated morning program for the past decade.

In a similar accident Monday, two small planes crashed over a Los Angeles golf course, killing all four people on board. No one on the ground was hurt.

Los Angeles Coroner's investigators were working Tuesday to officially identify the four victims of that crash.