3 Die in Collision of 2 Small Planes Near Oakland Airport

Two small planes collided in midair near Oakland International Airport Tuesday, and all three people aboard were killed.

The crash occurred when television screens with radar images of aircraft in the airport’s two air traffic control towers were shut down for maintenance. However, both pilots were operating under visual flight rules in which they were responsible for seeing each other, Federal Aviation Administration spokesmen said.

“They were as close to head-on as you can get,” said John Burk, a pilot who saw the crash as he drove on the busy Nimitz Freeway. He estimated that the planes were 1,200 feet to 1,500 feet in the air when they collided.

Crash Near Major Freeway

The crash occurred at about 10 a.m., shortly after a flight instructor and her student took off in a Cessna Skyhawk 172, and a Piper Lance PA-32 leased by United Parcel Service was preparing to land and pick up cargo. It happened a mile north of the airport, near the Oakland Coliseum and the Nimitz, the main artery between Oakland and San Jose.

The Cessna spiraled down, tearing through the roof of a warehouse at a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. service yard where 100 people work. It exploded and skidded into a fence near the main gate, knocking security guard Daniel Robertson, 32, unconscious. Robertson was recovering at an Oakland hospital.

The Piper hit nose down into a waist-deep cove of San Francisco Bay, about 200 feet from shore. Divers spent much of the day digging it out of 4 1/2 feet of mud, but could not immediately find the body of the pilot, who was not identified Tuesday.

Names of the 26-year-old flight instructor and her 19-year-old student were not immediately released. The instructor had been teaching at the Alameda Aero Club for about three years, said Stephen Mitulinski, a member of the club.

Visibility was about 15 miles and there were broken clouds.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators were checking tapes to determine whether air traffic controllers approved the Cessna’s takeoff and the Piper’s landing, and whether the tower radioed the aircrafts’ positions to their pilots before the crash.

Oakland International is unusual in that it is two separate airports--one for commercial carriers and one for general aviation. Each has its own control tower. The Cessna and Piper were operating at the general aviation field.

Monitoring Screens Down

FAA spokesmen in Los Angeles said television screens in both control towers were shut down. The screens show radar images gathered by a separate radar monitoring station.

Rus Cerretti, supervisor of the main control tower in Oakland, said the television screens were off for about 20 minutes as part of a monthly maintenance routine.

The main tower handles commercial carriers, but occasionally helps with general aviation, Cerretti said. He did not know whether the screen in the main tower would have displayed the two airplanes had it been turned on.

“Sometimes we do” see small aircraft on the television radar display, Cerretti said, “and sometimes we don’t. . . . I guess it’s just the way the equipment is made.”

Operations continue even when the screens are off. Controllers then simply rely on their eyesight, Cerretti said.