2 small planes collide near Los Angeles February 7, 2000 Web posted at: 1:45 PM EST (1845 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Two small airplanes collided in the air Monday, sending one craft crashing and burning onto a golf course and the other into trees across a freeway.

Golfer Danny Garza said he ran for his life.

"All I hear is like an explosion, and as I look up I see this plane coming straight down and it looks like it got entangled in some telephone wires," Garza told KNBC-TV. "And from then on I just kept running, thinking that these telephone wires were going to fall on me."

No one on the ground was hurt and Los Angeles Fire Department officials said they didn't know how many people were on the planes.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), February 07, 2000

Answers

More on the same story from ABC LA:

Disaster In The Skies Over The Southland, The Second Time In Just One Week

Two small planes collide in mid-air and then one slams to the ground

on a golf course in Sylmar. The second plane made it across the busy I-5 Freeway before crashing into some trees.

No one is believed to have survived this morning's in-flight crash.

As the one of the aircraft fell to the ground above the seventh hole of Cascade Golf Course golfer Danny Garza says he ran for his life.

No one on the ground is hurt.

Fire Department Captain Steve Ruda reports there were at least two killed in each plane.

Two men were killed in the plane that landed on the golf course, while a male and female died in the other plane.

Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis says searchers also are checking for a body in nearby hills. Witnesses say someone may have fallen out of one of the airplanes.

The planes fell on opposite sides of Interstate Five. Several shaken motorists pulled over to the side of the freeway. Several people on the golf course and the freeway called 911 for help.

The FAA says one of the planes was "experimental." That pilot reported having a problem on his approach to Van Nuys Airport.

Eyewitness News will have more on this breaking story at 11:30 a.m. on ABC7.

Link

http://abcnews.go.com/local/kabc/News/32787_1302000.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 07, 2000.

More private pilots crowd the skies of Southern California than any other single area on Earth. How there are not more mid-air collisions has amazed me since I first-hand viewed the aftermath of the PSA 727 mid-air collision and crash over San Diego.

And most of the mid-air collisions, heck any of the private aircraft crashes in Southerrn California, are due to the pilot. I saw an awful lot of reports about pilots flagrantly disregarding the rules, flying drunk or stoned for example. That kind of thing happened with a crash as the result, at least every month out there.

Far too often for safety's sake. Avoidable crashes should be avoided, not caused.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 07, 2000.