Owner of a plane in collision over Corona says both pilots were experienced
Five died in the Sunday crash, one of them killed by falling wreckage. Riverside County coroner's officials ID the victims.
The owner of one of the planes that crashed over Corona on Sunday afternoon said today that the pilots of both aircraft were licensed and experienced.
William Reinke of La Habra said one of the victims was a commercial pilot, but both parties were flying for leisure when the two small planes collided and rained debris on a busy commercial strip of auto dealerships.
The crash killed five people, four on the planes and one on the ground.
Airplane crash: A Jan. 22 article in the California section about a fatal, midair collision said that the Corona Municipal Airport has two runways. The airport has one runway.
Reinke, who runs a flight school, said he knew three of the victims aboard the planes. He said they had regularly rented planes from him.
Riverside County coroner officials today identified the dead as Brandon William Johnson, 24, of Costa Mesa; Paul Luther Carlson, 73, of Cerritos; Scott Gayle Lawrence, 55, of Cerritos; Earl Smiddy, 58, of Moreno Valley; and Anthony Joel Guzman, 20, of Hesperia. It was not immediately clear which victim was on the ground.
The planes collided about 3:35 p.m. Sunday about a mile from Corona Municipal Airport, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. A person was killed on the ground by debris that fell from the aircraft, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The cause of the accident, which occurred under clear skies, was not immediately known, national safety board investigator Wayne Pollack told reporters at a late-night news conference.
"The severity of the impact is fairly high," Pollack said.
FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said preliminary reports indicate that both aircraft were single-engine planes. One was identified as a two-seat Cessna 150; the other, a Cessna 172.
Pollack said two of the occupants of the Cessna 150 were ejected after the collision, one landing on a used car and the other landing in a lot. The two occupants of the other aircraft were found inside its wreckage at a Nissan dealership.
Witness Doug Champion said he was pulling into a supermarket parking lot just before the accident when he saw the two aircraft a mile or so away on the horizon.
"They looked like they would run into each other," said the off-duty Orange County sheriff's deputy. Champion thought it might be an optical illusion -- that the two planes might look close but actually be at different altitudes.
An instant later, however, he saw the northbound plane strike the other aircraft, Champion said.
It reminded him of an automobile collision. "It was almost like what you see in a T-bone traffic accident if someone runs a red light," he said.
