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A midair collision involving two small planes in southern Arizona killed two people Wednesday morning, authorities said.
Federal air-safety investigators said each plane had two people aboard when they collided at Marana Regional Airport on the outskirts of Tucson.
A Cessna 172 landed uneventfully and a Lancair 360 MK II hit the ground near a runway and caught fire, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation and cited preliminary information before its investigators had arrived.
The Marana Police Department confirmed that the two people killed were aboard one aircraft and said responders did not have a chance to provide medical treatment. Police did not identify which plane they were in, but the operator of the Cessna —AeroGuard, a commercial flight training school — said its two pilots were not injured.
Neither plane was based out of the Marana airport, the city said. The municipal fire department helped extinguish flames, said Marana police Sgt. Vincent Rizzi.
AeroGuard declined to comment on specifics of the collision but said it's working closely with the investigative agencies. “We are deeply saddened by the two fatalities from this tragic accident, and our thoughts and prayers are with their families and loved ones during this difficult time,” the company said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The collision came more than a week after a plane crash in Scottsdale killed one of two pilots of a private jet owned by Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil. That aircraft veered off a runway and hit a business jet.
It also followed four major aviation disasters that have occurred in North America in the last month. The most recent involved a Delta jet that flipped on its roof while landing in Toronto and the deadly crash of a commuter plane in Alaska.
In late January, 67 people were killed in a midair collision in Washington, D.C., involving an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter, marking the United States' deadliest aviation disaster since 2001. Just a day later, a medical transport jet with a child patient, her mother and four others aboard crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood, exploding in a fireball that engulfed several homes. That crash killed seven people, including all those aboard, and injured 19 others.
The airport in Marana has two intersecting runways and operates without an air traffic control tower.
A multimillion-dollar project was underway to build a tower but delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic pushed back construction. Tens of thousands of flights arrive and depart from the airport annually.
Most airports in the U.S. do not have air traffic control towers.
In those airspaces, pilots use a designated radio channel to announce intentions for landing and taking off, said Jeff Guzzetti, an airline safety consultant and a former Federal Aviation Administration and NTSB investigator.
Just because an airport doesn’t have a control tower doesn’t mean it’s unsafe, he said.
“All the pilots should be broadcasting on this common traffic advisory frequency. And there’s also a responsibility to see and avoid. Each pilot is responsible to see and avoid so they don’t collide with each other,” Guzzetti said.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that 67 people total were killed in the Washington, D.C., collision, rather than 67 people aboard the American Airlines jet.
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Associated Press journalists Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Ty ONeil in Las Vegas contributed.
