Two small single-engine planes collided midair Wednesday morning at Arizona’s Marana Regional Airport, which has no operating control tower. The FAA identified the aircraft as a Lancair 360 MK II and a Cessna 172S.
Pilots at non-towered airports, like Marana, use a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency to coordinate. The NTSB stated the planes crashed while “upwind of runway 12.” The Cessna failed to land, while the Lancair “impacted terrain near runway 3” and caught fire.
Each plane carried two passengers. Two people from the same aircraft were killed. Marana Airport Superintendent Galen Beem expressed condolences, calling it “an unprecedented event.”
This crash follows several recent aviation accidents, including a deadly midair collision over Reagan International Airport that killed 67 people and a medical jet crash that took multiple lives.
Just days earlier, a plane flipped upside down while landing in Toronto, though no fatalities occurred.
