Flight instructor, student from Kansas school die in Arizona

DODGE CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas school said that two people killed in a fiery midair collision earlier this month in Arizona were a flight instructor and a student.

Dodge City Community College identified the instructor in a news release Friday as Jessica Brandal and the student as Michael Papendick. Chandler police said earlier this week that Papendick was 34 and Brandal was 27.

The school said in the release that their families had asked for privacy.

They were in a helicopter that crashed into a single-engine plane on Oct. 1 near the municipal airport for the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Dodge City Community College operates its DC3 Flight Instructor Program out of the Chandler airport.

The plane landed safely, and the flight instructor and a student inside were not hurt. No one on the ground was hurt, police said at the time of the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration continue to investigate.

Chandler Municipal Airport is considered one of the nation’s 50 busiest general aviation airports with more than 200,000 flight operations a year, according to Chandler’s tourism office.

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