Key takeaways:
- Four people have died after two small planes collided midair over a central Florida lake on Tuesday afternoon.
- The planes involved were a Cherokee Piper 161 and a Piper J-3 Cub.
- The cause of the collision is still under investigation and the Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information about the incident to contact them.
Four people have died after two small planes collided midair over a central Florida lake on Tuesday afternoon.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, first responders rushed to the scene and found one plane 21 feet below the surface and another partly submerged. Steve Lester, the chief of staff with the Sheriff’s Office, said at a news conference that one of the planes involved was a Cherokee Piper 161 carrying Faith Irene Baker, 24, of Winter Haven, a pilot/flight instructor with Sunrise Aviation and Zachary Jean Mace, 19, of Winter Haven, a student at Polk State College.
The other plane was a Piper J-3 Cub with Randall Elbert Crawford, 67, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania and one other person on board. Lester said that the collision was so severe that both planes immediately went into the water.
The Sheriff’s Office said that first responders went into search-and-rescue mode and recovered the bodies of the four people who had been in the planes. Lester said that the operation is now a recovery operation.
The cause of the collision is still under investigation. The Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information about the incident to contact them.
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