Two killed in midair collision over Renton 

09:41 AM PDT on Friday, August 5, 2005

KING5.com

AP

Firefighters climb down from the roof of Kennydale Elementary School in Renton, Wash., after a small plane crashed through the roof.

RENTON, Wash. – Investigators were trying to figure out what caused two small planes to collide midair over Renton, Wash., near Interstate 405 Thursday evening. One plane landed safely at a Renton airport, but the other crashed through the roof of a building on the Kennydale Elementary school campus, killing both people on board.

The collision occurred at about 5:45 p.m. The first aircraft, a float plane, made an emergency landing beside a runway at nearby Renton Municipal Airport. All five people aboard scooted to safety after the deHavilland Beaver DHC-2 skipped across the grass for about 150 yards, bounced two or three times and skidded to a halt.

The other plane, a Cessna 152, smashed through the roof of Kennydale Elementary School, an empty two-story building that was closed for remodeling after the end of the school year in June. Both people on board died in the crash. The plane completely pierced the roof of the school and came to rest inside the building.

"We didn't see him coming," said Lee McEachran, a passenger on the float plane. "All we saw was a red and white Cessna pass underneath us and wipe out the floats."

Fred Bahr, the pilot of the float plane, told KING 5 News that there was little warning before the collision.

"All of a sudden I just saw a red and white flash just go under us, and that's all I saw," he said. "Just a momentary flash of red and white."

The impact "literally just relocated the floats to the right.

AP

The pontoons on the plane were bent by the collision before the plane made a landing in the grass between the runway and the taxiway at the Renton Municipal Airport.

They were at about a 30-degree angle," he added. "It's kind of strange when you look outside there to see a float and you don't see one."

"I saw the seaplane flying and a little plane come up and kind of clip it," said witness Jim Blundred. "It came straight down like a World War II plane being shot down, and it went straight down, smoke flying out of the end."

No one in the school was hurt. The two-story school building was closed for remodeling after classes ended in June, said Renton police spokeswoman Penny Bartley. Construction crews had left about a half an hour earlier for the day by the time the plane crashed, she added.

Crews from the Renton and Boeing fire departments were at the scene to control the spilled fuel.

The Renton airport was shut down because of a fuel leak on the damaged float plane.