Two dead in California plane collision

At least two people were killed when two small planes collided while trying to land at a local airport in northern California, officials said.

According to a tweet from the city of Watsonville, the plane crashed at Watsonville Municipal Airport shortly before 3 p.m. local time. The city-owned airport does not have a control tower that directs planes to take off and land.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), two people were aboard a twin-engine Cessna 340 during the crash, and only one pilot was aboard a single-engine Cessna 152. Officials said multiple deaths were reported, but it was unclear if anyone survived.

The FAA said in a statement that the pilot was on the final approach to the airport before the collision. No further details were immediately provided by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which are investigating the crash.

Watsonville is near Monterey Bay, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of San Francisco.

Photos and videos posted on social media showed the wreckage of a small plane in a meadow near the airport. One photo showed a plume of smoke visible from a street near the airport.

A photo from the city of Watsonville shows damage to a small building at the airport with firefighters at the scene.

A witness told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that the plane was about 200 feet (61 meters) in the air when it crashed.

Franky Herrera was driving through the airport when he saw the twin-engine plane lean to the right and hit the wing of the smaller plane, which “circled and crashed” near the edge of the airport, leaving home Not far, he told the newspaper.

Managers at Watsonville Municipal Airport were unavailable for telephone interviews in the hours following the accident. According to the city of Watsonville’s website, the airport accounts for about 40 percent of all general aviation activity in the Monterey Bay area.

The Watsonville Police Department forwarded the call to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, where the dispatcher had no information.

Two other pilots were also injured in plane crashes elsewhere in California on Thursday.

A 65-year-old San Diego man suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries when his single-engine plane crashed into a street near a busy highway overpass in El Cajon, authorities said.

The plane reportedly hit an SUV, but no one was injured on the ground in the city nearly 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of downtown San Diego.

Later, the pilot of an ultralight plane crashed upside down from a building at Camarillo Airport in Ventura County, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) from downtown Los Angeles, and was seriously injured.