Two planes crashed mid-air in Colorado on Saturday, killing three people, authorities said.
Joshua Bonafede, a Boulder County sheriff’s deputy, said two planes collided early Saturday morning. A plane was found about 30 miles northwest of downtown Denver. According to NBC affiliate 9 News, the other plane was found a few blocks away.
Around 8:50 a.m. local time, a single-engine Cessna 172 and a second plane collided and crashed near Longmont’s Vance Brand Airport, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said to The Washington Post in an email.
Two people were aboard the Cessna 172, the FAA spokesman said. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter that it is investigating a Cessna 172 collision with a plane it identified as a Sonex Xenos in Longmont, Colorado.
“The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate,” the FAA spokesman said. “The NTSB will continue the investigation and provide additional updates.”
The Cessna 172, also known as the Skyhawk, is one of the most popular aircraft in the world. It seats four and is commonly used in flight instruction.
Mid-air collisions are rare, with fewer than 30 occurring in the United States in a typical year. They almost always involve small private aircraft or military craft, not commercial aircraft, and are usually the result of human error, such as communication or navigational problems.
Under federal aviation regulations, private pilots must “see and avoid” other aircraft flying in the airspace near them, and must closely follow takeoff and landing procedures. Collisions are more likely in populated and heavily traveled areas.
Mountain View Fire Rescue, which serves the area, confirmed the three deaths and asked people to avoid the Niwot area, northeast of Boulder.
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Police had closed some roads in the area, Bonafede told The Washington Post.
“It’s still very early in the investigation,” Bonafede said, adding that federal investigators were “on the way.”
Praveena Somasundaram contributed to this report.