2 planes crash in mid-air, plunge into ocean off LA

Three people were missing this morning after an apparent mid-air collision of two small planes over the ocean near San Pedro and a search was underway overnight to try and locate any possible survivors, authorities said.

Long Beach fire Capt. Mark Miller says the control tower at Long…

LAX’s radar shows the blue and yellow aircraft slamming into each other at 3,100 feet and eventually vanishing from the radar screen.

Search teams are said to have recovered wreckage including a pilot’s logbook.

Firefighters responded to a report of a plane down in the water off San Pedro on February 5, 2016. Entrance to Los Angeles Harbor has been closed to all vessels.

As night approached, about two dozen divers were called in to search the area.

FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said the agency had been alerted about an aircraft down, but had no information about the type of plane or the number of people on board.

The planes collided approximately one quarter-mile south of the Angels Gate lighthouse. The area is popular for flight students and there were many planes in the crystal clear skies at the time of the accident.

The midair crash of Friday had not been the first in the region.

Richard Garnett, chief flight instructor with the Long Beach Flying Club, said the pilots practice in an area that is 10 to 20 square miles and at altitudes ranging from 1,000 to 4,000 feet.

“Thus using the quantity of process, really, I do believe we have been lucky”, he said.

In 2001, four people died when two Cessna airplanes carrying instructors and students collided 1,000 feet above the harbor. “I don’t know why, what happened in this situation”.