3 dead after small plane collision in Australia

SYDNEY- Three men died after two small planes collided in mid-air and crashed into a wooded area southwest of Sydney on Saturday.

Australian police, firefighters and ambulance personnel reached the two wreck sites, located in a semi-rural bushland area about 55 miles southwest of Sydney, on foot. A plane burst into flames upon impact.

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

No further details about the victims were released.

Witnesses saw “debris from 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, which occurred about a kilometer apart, were “unsurvivable.”

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

The cause of the crash is being investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.