The identity of the student is being withheld until investigators can contact his family.
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Authorities confirm a 24-year-old flight instructor was one of three people killed when two small planes collided near the West Georgia Regional Airport Wednesday.
“Two single aircraft, a Diamond Aircraft DA20C1 and a Beech F33A, collided in midair over at the West Georgia Airport, Carrolton, GA at 10:54 am today”, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.
The single pilot in the other plane has been identified as 79-year-old William Lewis Lindsey.
Carroll County Fire Chief Scott Blue says a pilot who saw the crash from the air told authorities it appeared that both planes were attempting to land simultaneously “and one came on top of the other”.
Carroll County Chief Deputy Coroner Ed Baskin said the woman and a man were in one of the planes and a second man was alone in the other plane.
Officials described the airport as “uncontrolled”, meaning there is no air traffic control tower at the airport, and pilots must communicate with one another through a radio channel, which could have contributed to the crash.
First responders found the wreckage of the two planes all twisted and mixed together.
Blue says authorities have not yet identified those who died.
The crash took place near West Georgia REginal airport, about 45 miles (72 km) west of Atlanta.
“We received a 911 call that there was a plane that had crashed at the airport, but when our workers arrived, we realized that it was in fact two planes that had collided with one another”, said Blue.
Three people are dead in a mid-air plane crash in Carroll County.
The FAA and the NTSB were on scene most of the evening gathering evidence as to what caused the crash.
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Benefield did not immediately return phone and email messages from The Associated Press.
