Small Planes Collide Over Nevada; 3 Die

YERINGTON, Nev. —  Two small planes collided in the air and crashed into the middle of town Thursday, killing all three people on board, setting a house on fire and temporarily closing a state highway.

“One plane is right on or near Main Street and another is a couple of blocks off,” Lyon County Sheriff Sid Smith said Thursday. No one on the ground was hurt.

The planes collided about 1,000 feet in the air in clear, sunny weather at 10:45 a.m., about a mile from Yerington Municipal Airport. It does not have a control tower, and the pilots were not being directed from below.

One plane crashed into the family room of a house, starting a fire that was quickly put out.

The other, carrying a local pilot identified as Ric Sorensen and one of his students, whizzed upside-down just over an office building and landed in a driveway between two homes. It did not burn, but the homes were evacuated because the plane was leaking fuel.

“We just heard a thump. It was so quiet I never even looked out the window,” said Patty Motley, a receptionist at a dental office in the building.

Pieces of wreckage were scattered for blocks in Yerington, a town of 2,300 in western Nevada, about 50 miles east of Lake Tahoe. Police were marking the wreckage with yellow crime scene tape.

A block of Main Street, State Route 208, was closed on the south end of town, Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Tony Almaraz said.

A witness told KOLO-TV that one plane clipped the tail of the other. One plane appeared to maneuver to try to avoid the crash, “but it didn’t have a chance,” the witness said. “I heard the impact on the ground and then I saw the smoke.”

The two others killed were not identified.