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World|life|October 24, 2014 / 11:09 AM
Official: 3 dead, 2 injured in Maryland midair collision

AKIPRESS.COM - 57e81f98579c73f7fab8691994e7b91c An airplane and a helicopter collided in the air near a Maryland airport before crashing into a line of trees and a pair of storage units on the ground Thursday afternoon, killing three people and injuring two men, the TampaBay reports.

A Cirrus SR22 plane was heading to the Frederick Municipal Airport and an R44 helicopter was involved in a training exercise when the collision occurred near the southwest corner of the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, which also said the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

The plane went down in a line of trees east of downtown Frederick, and the helicopter crashed one-tenth of a mile south, between two storage units, said Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley.

The three people who died were in the area of the helicopter wreckage, but it was not immediately clear whether all were on the helicopter, or if someone on the ground was killed, Shipley said.

The two men on the plane were taken by ambulance to Meritus Medical Center in Hagerstown but were being discharged, hospital spokeswoman Joelle Butler said in an email about three hours after the collision.

A parachute deployed from the plane after the 3:40 p.m. collision and was still attached to the aircraft when emergency responders arrived on the scene, said Capt. Kevin Fox of Frederick County Fire and Rescue. The large, red-and-white striped parachute could initially be seen still inflated and in the air, and then on the ground.

Chris Wolfe, owner of Wolfe Moving Systems about a half-mile from the airport, said he heard the collision.

"We didn't see it happen. We just heard this loud bang," he said. "It sounded closer than what it was, but it was a hell of a collision."

According to the Flight­Aware aviation tracking website, the plane took off from Cleveland Regional Jetport in Cleveland, Tenn.

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