Two pilots dead after crash northwest of Yerington

Two aircraft collided over the Nevada desert Sunday, sending them crashing near a dry lake bed and killing both pilots, authorities said.

The single-engine Cessna 170 and an experimental aircraft crashed in midair about 8 a.m., Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The pilots reported that the pilots were the planes’ only occupants and no one on the ground was hurt.

Gregor said that the circumstances of the collision were not immediately known, and the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

The crash occurred near Yerington in western Nevada during an informal weekend fly-in at the dry lake bed, the Lyon County Sheriff’s office told the paper.

The office said participants on the ground heard a sound a distance away and saw falling debris and smoke, sending them running or driving to the crash site.

“Deputies met with witnesses on scene who stated that two airplanes collided north of the dry lake bed and crashed into the side of a hill,” sheriff’s Sgt. Ryan Powell said in a statement.

Several airplanes were flying in and out of the dry lake bed over the weekend, the sheriff’s office said in its statement.

No names were immediately released. The sheriff’s office said autopsies were planned.