Two planes collided in midair Saturday in Boulder, Colorado, killing three people, authorities said.One of the planes, a single-seat Piper Pawnee, was towing a glider. The pilot of the Piper died in the collision, said Rick Brough of the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.
After the collision, the pilot of the glider was able to detach from the plane and land safely, Brough said.
The second aircraft involved in the collision was a Cirrus SR 20. Two people on that plane also died, Brough said.
Authorities began receiving reports of a plane crash around 1:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. ET), Brough said, adding that people had seen flames in the air in an area less than five miles from the Boulder Municipal Airport.
Brough said the debris field was spread out over a couple of miles.
"I was in my house and I heard a loud bang," iReporter Zac Mitchell, of Boulder, told CNN. "I looked out my window and saw a giant fireball in the sky."
When he went outside, he said he saw smoke and two objects, including a parachute, falling from the sky.
"It was quite a shock, it happened right in front of me," he said.
Brough said a parachute did deploy from one of the planes, but that no one was attached to it.The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are involved in investigating the incident, Brough said.CNN's Leslie Tripp, John Branch and Nick Valencia contributed to this report.
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