Officials ID 3 killed in California small plane collision

WATSONVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities on Monday identified three people killed along with a dog when two small planes collided while trying to land last week at a rural Northern California airport.

Two pilots and a passenger died in the collision Thursday afternoon at Watsonville Municipal Airport, east of Santa Cruz, authorities said.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office identified them as Carl Kruppa, 75, of Winton, California; Nannette Plett-Kruppa, 67, also of Winton; and Stuart Camenson, 32, of Santa Cruz.

Officials did not say which of the victims were pilots and who was the passenger.

The cause of the crash is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration.

There were two people and a dog aboard a twin-engine Cessna 340 and only the pilot aboard a single-engine Cessna 152 during the crash, NTSB investigator Fabian Salazar said last week.

A preliminary report on the fatal collision from the NTSB is expected in about two weeks, Salazar said.

Watsonville, an agricultural town near Monterey Bay, is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of San Francisco.