Three Die In A Mid-Air Collision Over Caledon
Posted August 4, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
They never got there.
Authorities with the Transportation Safety Board will be busy this holiday trying to figure out what caused two small planes to collide in mid-air over Caledon.
Three people died when the aircraft came together unexpectedly around 12:40pm Friday. There were no survivors.
Witnesses first heard the sounds of the crash and quickly rushed outside to investigate. What they saw made them shudder – pieces of the aircraft were strewn over several farm fields, and the destructive power of the impact was so widespread, it may take investigators months to piece it all together.
“Me and my buddy were cutting grass and we heard, like, backfiring,” one young man recalls.
“Then we saw a piece of metal, like a white piece, sort of triangular, sitting on the side of the road,” adds his friend.
How the two planes wound up occupying the same air space is a mystery.
“We don’t have confirmation on where they were coming from and where they were headed,” admits Caledon O.P.P. Constable Linda Kennedy.
There’s no indication yet if the conditions are to blame, although it was quite windy in the area when the planes went down.
“It would be too early to determine if weather was a factor,” added Kennedy hours after the accident. “It is quite sunny here. Puffy clouds in the sky. Not overcast. Not rain conditions at all. It’s clear and sunny. There is a breeze.”
Police have closed a long stretch of Willoughby Road, between Charleston Sideroad and Beechgrove Sideroad and expect the detour to last all day and possibly into Saturday.
The names of the deceased are being withheld until next of kin are notified, but it’s been revealed one of the flights originated at the Brampton Flight Centre in Brampton, while the second took off from Burlington.
