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One pilot is dead and another critically injured after two small planes collided in the air near Promenades St-Bruno shopping mall south of Montreal just before 1 p.m. Friday, police and witnesses said.

Two other people who saw the crash unfold were being treated for nervous shock, Longueuil police told reporters at the scene. Just after 5 p.m., police added that they didn’t fear for the life of the injured pilot.

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The Transportation Safety Board of Canada announced it was deploying a team of investigators to the site. The TSB said in a statement that both planes were Cessna 152 aircraft operated by Cargair Ltd., a pilot-training academy in nearby St-Hubert.

One plane crashed onto the roof of the shopping mall, its fuel leaking into the snow on top of the building. The other plane slammed into the parking lot, splintering into pieces that one witness said looked like broken Lego blocks.

Photo by John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette

Antonio Chirita, who works at a Videotron store in the mall, said he heard a loud bang, smelled what he thought was kerosene and heard people screaming. He raced outside to discover the plane strewn across the parking lot, its fuel also leaking.

“Somebody was going around the plane, and trying to see what was happening, and there was another guy from a store who came out, and told him to go away because there was kerosene on the floor,” Chirita said. “It’s highly flammable. … But I think they realized the people in the plane were in pieces. “