FREDERICK, Md. (WUSA9) -- Officials have identified the three people killed when a plane and helicopter collided on Thursday afternoon.
The three victims were identified as 29-year-old Christopher Parsons of Westminster, Maryland, 47-year-old William Jenkins of Morison, Colorado, and 35-year-old Brendan MacFawn of Cumberland, Maryland.
All three men were on-board the helicopter when it crashed, police said. Authorities have not yet verified who was piloting the helicopter, police said.
The two passengers in the plane were treated at the hospital and released, officials said during a press conference Thursday evening. They have been identified as 55-year-old Scott Graeves of Brookeville, Maryland and 75-year-old Gilbert Porter of Sandy Spring, Maryland.
Graeves was operating the plane at the time of the incident, police said. We're told he runs the family-owned business Graeves Auto and Appliance Inc. in the Olney area.
The small plane and the helicopter collided around 3:40 p.m. Thursday.
The collision occurred just north of the Frederick Municipal Airport. The plane was found suspended vertically in a thin row of trees in the 500 block of Monocacy Boulevard, State police said. The plane's parachute had deployed from the rear of the aircraft, police said.
The helicopter was found crashed between two rows of a storage units at a self storage facility near the intersection of Highland and Monroe Streets, about one-tenth of a mile south of where the plane was found, police said.
The plane, owned by a company in Olney, was travelling from Cleveland, Tennessee to Frederick, Maryland. The tail number on the plane is N122ES. A Cirrus SR 22 has four seats and a parachute that can be deployed to land the plane.
The helicopter, a two-seat Robinson R44, was used by a flight school in Frederick. Describing the state of the helicopter Bryan Rayner, an NTSB investigator said it was "destroyed it is significantly damaged."
Timothy Flanary works near the scene of the crash, and described the sounds of the collision: " I heard a plane fly by and then it sounded like it was slowing down, and you just hear a loud boom." When he arrived on the scene Flanary described they "found a plane hanging in the trees, ran up to it and started asking if they were okay, they said they were okay and we helped them get out."
The NTSB took the investigation over from Maryland State Police Thursday evening.
The next step is for NTSB investigators to search the two crash scenes for debris and evidence in to what may have caused the crash.
The NTSB investigation will be broken into three parts . First authorities will check the credentials and licensing of both pilots.
The second element of the investigation will be assessing the state of the aircrafts and their history and maintenance records try and identify any faulty equipment that could have caused the crash. The third element of the investigation is to look at environment. Due to the clear and sunny conditions weather does not appear to be a factor in the crash, preliminary investigations show.
