Two small planes collided in the air at an Colorado airport on Sunday, leaving one dead amid a charred patch of earth. A Cessna 172 and an Extra Flugzeugbau EA300 were both trying to land at Fort Morgan Municipal Airport around 10:40am when they collided, the Morgan County Sheriff's Office said, per KUSA. The Cessna was on final approach when it was struck by the Extra near the runway, Fox News reports, adding both planes erupted in flames as they hit the ground. Each plane was carrying two people. One person in the Extra died at the scene, while the other was taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries. The two people in the Cessna were treated for minor injuries and released at the scene, per KUSA.
Though observers noted the Extra Flugzeugbau EA300 is an aerobatic plane, the Metropolitan State University of Denver said the crash was unrelated to a weekend competition at the airport involving its collegiate aerobatics team, per KUSA. NTSB investigators were expected to arrive at the crash site on Monday afternoon. Former NTSB senior air safety investigator Greg Feith tells KUSA that the airport is uncontrolled, meaning there is no air traffic control tower, so "it's incumbent upon pilots who are flying in and out of that airport to report their position over a common frequency." He says investigators will now be looking to determine if both pilots made radio calls.