AP News, November 21st, 2007
Two small planes collided above a bay near Tacoma on Tuesday, with one landing safely at a nearby airstrip and the other touching down softly in the water, authorities said.
There were two people aboard one of the planes and one aboard the other. None was injured seriously. The cause of the crash wasn't immediately known.
One of the planes, a single-engine American Champion, made a soft landing in Commencement Bay, Tacoma Police Detective Thomas Williams said.
The pilot of that plane and his mother, who is in her 70s, clung to the plane until it sank and were rescued by boaters, he said. The identities of the two were not released by a local hospital, but both reportedly were fine.
No oil or fuel was leaking from the plane Tuesday afternoon, Williams said.
The other plane, a single-engine Cessna 182, landed at Thun Field in Puyallup, about 10 miles southeast of Tacoma, with damage to its landing gear, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said.
The pilot of that plane, Bud Williams, said he was flying home to the Port Angeles area when the planes clipped.
"Came out of my right side, which is out of my blind spot, and I just had a chance to pull up before we hit," he told KOMO-TV. "It was quite a hard hit. My first reaction was, 'Where's the other plane?'"
Williams' plane had damage to the housing of one of its landing gears, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said.
(This version CORRECTS that there were 3 people aboard the two planes and the types of planes involved).)
