3 dead after light planes collide in Australia

SYDNEY (AP) – Three men died after two light planes collided mid-air and crashed in a wooded area southwest of Sydney on Saturday.

Australian police, fire and ambulance crews reached the two wrecks on foot, located in a semi-rural bush area about 55 miles south-west of Sydney. One plane burst into flames on impact.

New South Wales Police Acting Superintendent Timothy Calman confirmed a Cessna 182 carrying two people collided with an ultralight aircraft at a nearby airfield carrying one.

Further details about the victims have not been released.

Witnesses saw “remains coming out of the sky” and tried to help, but “probably not much could have been done,” Calman told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He noted that both accidents, about a kilometer apart, “cannot survive”.

NSW Ambulance Inspector Joseph Ibrahim, part of the emergency response team, told the ABC: “Unfortunately there was nothing they could have done.”

The cause of the accident will be investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.