Five die in midair plane crash over Corona

CORONA – Two private planes flying about a mile from the airport here collided Sunday, killing at least five people as debris rained down on car dealerships below, authorities said.

The planes, both small Cessnas, slammed into each other at 3:35 p.m. about a mile from the Corona Municipal Airport and just north of the 91, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Wayne Pollack said one of the victims was inside a Chevrolet dealership and was struck by parts of a Cessna 150. Two victims remained inside the other plane, a Cessna 172, late Sunday night.

Jeff Hardin and his wife were driving west on the 91 to visit friends in Villa Park when the collision occurred.

"My wife said, ‘Oh my God,’ and I looked up just in time to see two planes slam into each other," he said. "There was no sound. I just saw one disintegrate, and the other was pretty much intact, falling to the ground."

"Your first instinct is to see if you can help, so we booked it straight for the crash site, but as soon as we got there, it was clear there was nobody in that wreckage that could be helped," he said.

Identification numbers from the planes released by the FAA show that one of them is owned by pilot William Reinke of La Habra.

Reached at his house Sunday night, Reinke said, "I only know what happened off the television."

He declined to say who was flying his plane.

"Until I find out from the police it was the airplane involved, you’ll have to go through official channels," he said.

The other plane is owned by Air Corona Inc., according to FAA records.

Officials did not identify any victims as of 9:45 p.m. Sunday.

TV pictures showed that the smashed fuselage of one of the planes landed on top of a parked car.

Victor Rodriguez, manager at a Nissan dealership, said, "We got four bodies on our property – two in the plane, one in the driveway and one on the car."

The Riverside Press-Enterprise reported that Matt Martinez, Hector Hernandez and Jeff Olha were passing the dealerships when they heard the planes collide and saw the debris falling.

"I was shocked," said Hernandez, 30, of Garden Grove. "It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen."

The three drove to the crash site to see if they could help survivors, Martinez, 25, of Garden Grove, told the Press-Enterprise. They didn’t find any, they said.

The accident left people stranded and unable to pick up the cars they had dropped off at the auto center, which was cordoned off for the investigation. Some of them streamed into the AM PM Mini Mart nearby to drink coffee and wait it out.

Staff writers Eric Carpenter, Marilyn Kalfus, Cindy O’Dell, Angela Potter, Tony Saavedra and Jannlee Watson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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