Multiple fatalities after two small planes collide mid-air over California airport

[Still Waters]

Multiple people have died folllowing a rare, mid-air crash between two planes at a California airport, officials have said.

The incident on Thursday afternoon happened at the Watsonville Municipal Airport in Watsonville, a town home to just over 50,000 people around 50 miles south of San Jose.

Emergency services rushed to the scene following news of the crash, but multiple fatalities have been reported.

In the aftermath of the collision, the City of Watsonville Twitter account posted a statement saying: "We are absolutely saddened to hear about the tragic incident that took the lives of several people.

https://www.joe.ie/news/multiple-fatalities-after-planes-collide-mid-air-over-california-airport-753791

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/multiple-fatalities-reported-after-2-small-planes-collide-mid-air-officials-say/ar-AA10O29n?

[Silver]

This reaction seems to suggest the twin pilot was negligent:

'The older, more experienced, richer, hot rod twin pilot comes blasting in like an X15 to an uncontrolled airport where the less experienced, new pilot is doing training touch and goes around and around the pattern. The hot rod twin pilot automatically assumes that his hot rod status gives him priority. A Cessna 150 is about the slowest bird out there, and it's so slow that after watching the twin barreling down on him, he couldn't even get out of the way. Airplanes are hard to see in ground clutter. The twin pilot was careless and reckless barging straight in to a pattern where he knew there were at least two other airplanes flying "normal" rectangular patterns. How was he going to stop anyway? Chop power, shock cool engines, dump the flaps, dump the gear, plop it down and stand on the brakes? The 152 pilot should have made an emergency steep turn away from the extended center line of the runway to get away from the twin pilot, but who wants to steep turn away from somebody you can no longer see when you're only a few hundred feet in the air? We're not crop duster pilots! Standard pattern entry at uncontrolled airports is recommended for just this reason. Straight in approaches are always subject to higher risk. There's a reason such a high percentage of mid air collisions happen on short final!'

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Silver