Plane Was Circling Closed Airport Before Crash, Officials Say

Two small planes that collided over a neighborhood struck wings as one circled a closed airport, a preliminary investigation has found.

The March 19 accident occurred when the right wingtip of a descending plane hit the left wing of the circling aircraft one minute before the expected 5 p.m. reopening of Corona Municipal Airport, said Thomas Wilcox, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Minutes before the collision, the aircraft were approaching head-on,” Wilcox said.

All three men aboard the airplanes were killed and falling wreckage burned a home and condominiums.

The preliminary investigation did not assign blame for the crash. A final report could take up to eight months, Wilcox said.

The crash killed flight instructor Perry Armstrong, 56, of Corona and David Cash, 56, and Lee H. Hunter, 49, both of Chino.

No one on the ground was hurt when Armstrong’s single-engine Cessna 152 fell on a home on Hummingbird Lane and the twin-engine Cessna 310-H with the other men aboard hit a walkway and building inside an 88-unit condominium complex half a mile away.

The twin-engine plane was descending from 4,000 feet on its way from Rialto to nearby Chino when it collided with Armstrong’s plane, which was circling at 3,000 feet, Wilcox said.

At the time, the lone runway at Corona was closed for construction of a wall to divert water. Part of the runway had washed out during recent storms.