LOS ANGELES — Authorities on Saturday called off the search for survivors of a midair collision that sent at least one plane plunging into the ocean near the Port of Los Angeles. Instead the effort turned to hunting for bodies and wreckage.
The active search for three missing people was suspended at 9:15 a.m., according to a U.S. Coast Guard statement.
Two men, ages 61 and 81, were aboard a plane that was seen on radar colliding with another aircraft, flown by a 72-year-old woman, around 3:30 p.m. Friday, officials said.
The woman’s husband said Saturday he believes she did not survive the accident.
Richard Falstrom said his wife, Mary Falstrom, told him the nice weather beckoned her to go fly. He said she never came home and that he’s certain her small-engine plane went down.
“She loved flying. It was a passion,” he said, adding that she had decades of piloting experience.
The first plane was a Beech 35 Bonanza and the second was a Citabria, said Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
After reports of the crash, divers converged on an area about two miles outside a harbor entrance where a small debris field was found. The water there is 80 to 90 feet deep.
On Friday, divers found wreckage and a pilot’s logbook from the Beechcraft, Coast Guard Capt. Jennifer Williams said. No one has heard from the other plane, authorities said.
Both planes had taken off from nearby Torrance Airport, and both pilots were experienced, Williams said. No names have been released.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was using sonar and remotely operated underwater vehicles to search the area where debris and oil were spotted Friday. However, nothing more had been found by Saturday afternoon, said Capt. Jack Ewell of the sheriff’s Special Operations Bureau.
The planes could have gone down in different areas or the ocean currents could have moved debris miles away, he said.
As for the chance of survivors, “the odds are definitely not good,” Ewell said.
“You do have to consider that a plane crashed and it’s very hard to survive that in any conditions, let alone two miles out in deep water,” he said.
Friday’s midair collision was not the first in the area.
In 2001, four people died when two Cessna airplanes carrying instructors and students collided 1,000 feet above the harbor. In 1986, two small planes flown by students collided, but the aircraft managed to return to their airports safely.
