Two people are d3ad after two small aircraft collided in midair at an Arizona airport Wednesday, authorities said.
A Cessna 172S and Lancair 360 MK II collided at 8:28 a.m. near the Marana Regional Airport, just northwest of Tucson, according to preliminary information from the National Transportation Safety Board.
The busy, “uncontrolled” airport, which hosts a lot of flight training, does not have an operating air traffic control tower, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Non-towered airports are much more common than towered fields, with nearly 20,000 airports in the US, compared to approximately 500 with towers, according to the Airport Safety Institute.
At non-towered airports, pilots often use a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency to announce their position to other pilots who are in the airport vicinity. Pilots operating in uncontrolled fields are still required to comply with all federal aviation regulations.
The single-engine planes “collided while upwind of runway 12,” one of two runways at the airport. The Cessna landed, and the Lancair crashed and burned near the other runway, the NTSB said.
The Marana Police Department confirmed two deaths from the incident. Two people were on each plane, the Town of Marana said in a news release.
The operator of the Cessna – AeroGuard, a commercial flight training school – said its two pilots were not injured, The Associated Press reported. The victims have not been identified and next of kin have not yet been notified, the Marana Police Department told CNN on Thursday, noting “it may be a little while until we can get positive confirmation.”
The airport is closed while the investigation is ongoing, the town said.
“On behalf of the Town of Marana and the Marana Regional Airport, our hearts go out to all the individuals and families impacted by this event,” airport Superintendent Galen Beem said. “We are grateful for the swift response from the Marana Police Department and Northwest Fire District.”
“We are deeply saddened by the two fatalities from this tragic accident,” Matt Panichas, a spokesperson for AeroGuard, said in a statement to AP.
An NTSB investigator is expected to arrive Thursday morning to document the scene and examine the aircraft. The FAA is also responding.
The incident follows a recent string of aviation accidents beginning with the January 29 midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which ki!!ed 67 people when a military helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet collided.
Since then, four other aviation incidents have drawn attention to air safety, including the crash of a medevac plane in Philadelphia; a plane that crashed near Nome, Alaska, ki!!ing 10 people; a private plane that ran off the runway in Scottsdale, Arizona, ki!!ing the pilot on board; and more recently, a Delta Air Lines regional jet that rolled over on the runway on arrival in Toronto.
Even with the past month of aviation accidents, January’s preliminary data from the NTSB shows there was a record low number of airplane accidents nationwide among private and commercial flights. Before the January 29 collision, the last major fatal airplane accident involving a US carrier was in 2009, involving a flight operated by Colgan Air.
At non-towered airports, pilots rely on their aircraft instruments and visual references to determine that information. Near misses or runway incursions can happen “due to misinformation, miscommunications, or other human errors,” a study from Minnesota State University on air traffic-related incidents at non-towered airports said.
Additionally, smaller planes are statistically more likely to experience incidents. The aircraft are not as heavily regulated as those operating under Part 121 ru, the set of FAA rules followed by major air carriers. Private and general aviation aircraft follow different, less strict FAA rules but are still inspected and maintained.
There’s also just a larger number of smaller planes. The National Air and Space Museum estimates there are more than 340,000 general aviation aircraft around the world and US pilots operate 204,000 of them.
