LANTANA, Fla. — Following the tragic aircraft collision that killed more than 60 people near Washington, D.C., WPTV News dug into federal data to see how often planes crash while in the air or have close calls.
Reporter Ethan Stein analyzed hundreds of incidents in Florida and found a midair crash that occurred a decade ago in Palm Beach County that involved a helicopter and airplane.
WATCH BELOW: 7 midair plane collisions have occurred in US in last 45 years
Lee Carter said he was about 200 feet in the air, trying to land a helicopter at Lantana Airport. That's when he heard a "loud bang."
"My instructor and I were like, 'What the heck was that,'" Carter said. "Then we saw the airplane kind of lurching above us, and at that point, we realized it had come down and our main rotor made contact with the airplane."
The NTSB said this midair collision between a plane and a helicopter in Palm Beach County happened in January 2015 — almost 10 years to the day that a Blackhawk helicopter and American Airlines regional jet collided in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night.
In this local case, investigators said the plane and the helicopter were trying to land during training flights, but the plane hit the top of the helicopter.
Unlike Wednesday night's collision in Washington where officials said there were no survivors, there were no injuries in the Lantana midair collision. NTSB said the only damage was to the aircrafts, which it classified as "minor."
Cameron Wells, the helicopter instructor at the time of the Lantana incident, told the FAA in an email that the weight tip of the helicopter's blade was detached by the collision and the blade was rippled toward the root. He also said the plane had damage on the wing.
Clifford Coffyn, who was flying the plane, said in an email to the FAA that he "maneuvered the aircraft to avoid a catastrophic disaster."
This crash wasn't included in the FAA's database of crashes and incidents, known as the Accident and Incident Data System. However, WPTV found seven other midair crashes after looking at more than 40 years of data.
Shem Malmquist, who is a pilot and instructor at the Florida Institute of Technology, said midair collisions are extremely rare. Malmquist said if they happen they normally happen at smaller airports without air traffic control towers like the Lantana Airport.
"The only method of separating traffic is visually, as well as airplanes communicating their positions to other airplanes, and that's going to create more risk," Malmquist said.
