Two persons were killed Wednesday morning in southern Arizona in a midair crash between two light planes, according to police.
Both aircraft were carrying two passengers when they collided close to Marana Regional Airport on the outskirts of Tucson, according to federal air safety investigators.
The National Transportation Safety Board stated, citing preliminary information before its investigators arrived, that one plane landed without incident while the other struck the ground close to a runway and caught fire.
The two deceased were on a single aircraft, according to the Marana Police Department, which also stated that emergency personnel were unable to administer medical care. The two passengers on the other jet were unharmed, according to Sgt. Vincent Rizzi.
According to Rizzi, the municipal fire department assisted in putting out the fire.
The incident occurred almost a week after one of two pilots on a private jet belonging by Mtley Cr e singer Vince Neil was killed in a plane crash near Scottsdale. That plane struck a business jet after veering off a runway.
In the past month, there have been four significant aircraft tragedies in North America. Most recently, a commuter plane crashed fatally in Alaska, while a Delta flight turned on its roof during landing in Toronto.
The United States’ deadliest aviation tragedy since 2001 occurred in late January when an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter collided in midair in Washington, D.C., killing 67 people. A medical transport plane carrying a young patient, her mother, and four other people crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood on January 31st, just one day later. The plane exploded in a firestorm that devoured multiple homes. Seven persons, including everyone on board, were killed in that disaster, while 19 others were injured.
The Marana airport does not have an air traffic control tower and features two runways that intersect.
A multimillion-dollar tower construction project was in progress, but the COVID-19 epidemic caused delays that caused the project to be delayed. Every year, tens of thousands of planes land and take off from the airport.
Only airports that receive commercial traffic have air traffic control towers, unlike the majority of airports in the United States.
According to Jeff Guzzetti, an airline safety consultant and former Federal Aviation Administration and NTSB investigator, pilots use a specific radio channel to indicate their intentions to land and take off at certain airspaces.
According to him, an airport is not necessarily dangerous just because it lacks a control tower.
It is recommended that all pilots use this common traffic advisory frequency for broadcasting. Additionally, there is a duty to recognize and steer clear of. According to Guzzetti, it is the duty of every pilot to observe and steer clear of one another so that they do not collide.
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The number of individuals killed in the collision in Washington, D.C., has been changed from 67 on the American Airlines plane to 67 in total.
— By Sejal Govindarao and Morgan Lee The Associated Press
Govindarao reported from Phoenix, while Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Journalist Susan Montoya Bryan of the Associated Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico, also made a contribution.
