The pilots of two planes which crashed in mid air leaving two people dead were reportedly heard arguing moments before impact.
NASA engineer Michael Reinath, 70, and his passenger Linda Gifford, 76, were killed on February 19 when their Lancair 360 MK II collided with a Cessna 172 carrying two others.
An eyewitness said they heard the pilots yelling at each other prior to the crash, with one allegedly shouting: ‘You cut me off’ just before the impact, according to a police report obtained by 13 News.
The report detailed how the Cessna’s propeller hit the Lancair’s tail sending it crashing down into a fiery inferno at the Marana Airport near Tucson, Arizona.
The Cessna was carrying a pilot and student and managed to land safely with no injuries.
The Cessna pilot was practicing ‘touch down maneuvers’ when they saw the other plane approach, according to the police report.
She said that Reinath said he was going to abort the landing and she assumed he would move the Lancair out of the way.
A witness on the ground blamed the Lancair pilot – Reinath – claiming he cut in front of the Cessna and had his tail wing sliced clean off by the Cessna propeller.
Michael Reinath, the pilot of a plane which crashed into another aircraft killing him and his passenger, was heard arguing with the other pilot before impact
The Lancair 360 MK II, a tiny ‘experimental’ two-seat plane, was reduced to smoldering rubble when it crashed at Marana Airport near Tucson on Wednesday morning
The Cessna 172S and a Lancair 360 MK II slammed into each other on approach to the runway, slicing off the Lancair’s tail wing and sending it spinning to the ground
The only damage to the cessair plane, witnesses said, was its propeller
‘The guilty plane was a homebuilt called a Lancair 4, which overtook and sideswiped the Cessna on the right side, severing the Lancair’s left [tail] wing, doing a half roll to the left and landing inverted in the ditch to the left of the runway,’ Jerry Witt said.
‘The propeller was the only damage on the 172.’
Witt said the Cessna was on a training flight and the instructor was able to limp the damaged plane around and on to the runway.
‘It was a miracle that the Cessna pilots (an instructor and her student) weren’t also killed,’ he said.
‘The instructor made a split second decision to try and keep her plane flying and came back around and landed.’
Another pilot who said he was in the air nearby during the crash shared the final seconds of radio traffic.
‘I heard the Lancair pilot make a radio call seconds before the collision saying, “Going around Runway 12 Again”,’ he said.
‘Just seconds after that radio call you hear someone screaming and yelling mayday and the [Cessna] declaring the emergency saying they were going to turn around and land on Runway 30.’
The Cessna 172S was on a training flight and the instructor was able to limp the damaged plane around and on to the runway
Authorities said the collision involved a Lancair 360 MKII (left) and a Cessna 172S (right, both aircraft seen in stock pictures)
Marana, like many small airfields, has no air traffic control tower.
It relies on pilots maintaining visual contact with other planes and communicating on Common Traffic Advisory Frequency radio.
Construction of one is planned, but not until 2027 after it was delayed by the Covid pandemic.
Reinath was a NASA engineer who had built the Lancair over 10,000 hours, his friend Jeff Budner told KCRA.
