3 Die as 2 Firefighting Planes Collide : Accident: Tanker and spotter craft plunge to earth in San Diego County, sparking fires that destroy two homes. Two residents escape unharmed.

Three crew members were killed Wednesday as two U.S. Forest Service firefighting planes collided in midair and crashed near the airport in this rural community in northern San Diego County, setting two homes on fire and spewing burning wreckage over a wide area.

Two ranch-style homes were destroyed as a tanker and a spotter plane, which had been fighting the massive brush fire near Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, plunged to the ground in pieces after the 11:30 a.m. collision.

The tanker’s pilot, Gary Cockrell of Paso Robles, and co-pilot, Lisa Netsch of Hemet, were killed, as was the spotter plane’s pilot, Michael Smith of Hesperia.

Cockrell and Netsch were employees of a private firm hired by the Forest Service, and Smith was a Forest Service worker.

The crash touched off a massive explosion and left wreckage strewn up to a mile away near homes and a shopping center. But no one on the ground was seriously injured.

One of the destroyed homes had recently been resold and was vacant. At the second one, two teen-age girls fled in terror as sections of the tanker crashed through the roof into the living room and kitchen and the spacious four-bedroom house burst into flames.

Diana Macias, 15, crawled out a shattered window just ahead of the spreading fire. Her 14-year-old sister, Stephanie, was in the front yard when the collision occurred and quickly ran away. Diana was unaware her younger sister was safe and, on the verge of hysteria, she screamed for neighbors and passersby to find her.

If the crash had happened just minutes earlier, there probably would have been more fatalities. Several members of the Macias family had just gone shopping, leaving Stephanie and Diana at home.

“The Lord must have been looking out for us,” said their brother Roman, 17, as he looked at the charred remains of the home his father built three years ago while the family lived in a trailer. “We could have all been killed.”

Witnesses said the smaller plane, a Beechcraft Barron, clipped the top of the larger plane, a four-engine DC-4 that carried fire retardant, and sliced off its tail. The DC-4 was owned by Aero Union in Chico and was leased to the Forest Service, which owned the Beechcraft.

“The smaller one just pancaked the big one and both went down,” said Robert Hayes, who lives on Letton Street, where the two homes were destroyed. “It was one hell of a noise and fire. I was dodging plane parts from the sky.”

A variety of would-be rescuers raced to the two homes to search for survivors.

Wayne Curry, an off-duty volunteer with the San Ysabel Fire Company, was driving by when he saw the crash. He dashed into the Macias home wearing a T-shirt, jeans and sandals and without any firefighting gear.

“The girl [Diana Macias] came out of the house, yelling and screaming that people were inside,” said Curry, tears filling his eyes. “I went in and I thought I heard somebody, but the roof was burning and caving in so I had to get out. The dragon [fire] ran me out of there.”

Terry Nielsen, a truck driver and horse rancher, heard the collision and explosion and tried to get the pilot of the tanker plane out of the burning wreckage. He futilely attempted to put out the flames with a garden hose.

“He was trapped inside and was upside-down in his seat,” Nielsen said. “The fire was everywhere, and I tried to get him out, but there was too much damned wreckage on top of him. He probably never knew what hit him.”

Fire engines from the California Department of Forestry and the Ramona, San Diego and Poway fire departments arrived within minutes. The two homes were already a mass of flames but firefighters kept the fire from spreading to the dry and weed-choked lots in the surrounding neighborhood.

“Everything was ripping [burning] when we got here,” said Poway Fire Capt. Dave Hypes.

Ramona, 30 miles northeast of downtown San Diego, with a population of 29,500, is a farming and horse-breeding community with an airport that is not served by a control tower or air traffic controllers. Planes follow what are called see-and-be-seen rules.

The two planes were helping to fight the so-called Butterfield fire, which erupted Monday and has consumed more than 6,750 acres of scrubland east of Julian. The spotter plane flies ahead of the tankers and gives directions on where to drop the mega-gallon loads of fire retardant.

Using the Ramona airport as a headquarters, eight tankers and seven helicopters, backed by 825 firefighters, have been fighting the Butterfield blaze, which has not yet threatened any structures. Officials do not expect that fire to be contained until Saturday.

The U.S. Forest Service and state Forestry Department maintain a joint command post at the Ramona airport, and tankers based there fight fires throughout Southern California. There are no reports of previous crashes or near misses.

The investigation of the deadly incident will attempt to ascertain how two experienced pilots, trained to handle the difficult flying conditions of firefighting, including tricky winds and tight turns, could have collided when visibility was good and the landing approach well known.

The two planes were apparently attempting to land at the Ramona airport, about a mile from the crash site, possibly to refuel or get more fire retardant, officials said.

“I said to my daughter, ‘Look at that little plane chasing the big plane,’ ” said Anna Allen, who was at a nearby McDonald’s. “Then they hit.”

The smaller plane crashed nearly nose-first. But witnesses said the tanker appeared to attempt to stay airborne and miss homes.

The crash site is in a neighborhood of big custom-built homes and large lots. The wreckage fell on several bicycles.

To land at the airport, planes make a sweeping left turn over Letton Street, which has long worried residents.

“We were always wondering when something like this would happen,” said one neighbor.