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Tucson, huh?Let's talk about this one.
This crash happened at a small airport north of Tucson that operates without a tower controller. The pilots are supposed to communicate on a designated frequency for the specific airport, often referred to a unicom.
Ideally, you state your intentions to enter the traffic pattern around the airport, including the runway and the direction of your pattern (left turns or right turns). Then you keep anyone in the area updated on your location in the pattern (downwind, turning base). Lastly, you make sure you broadcast your intentions - a full stop or a touch and go.
Since there is no tower at this airport, there are no recordings (at least none known at this time) of the communications between the pilots. But we do know that a slower plane came in to do a touch and go (very common during pilot training - which this was - a student and instructor), while a much faster plane was following behind them. The faster plane executed a missed approach (possibly because the slower plane was not clear of the runway, but that is unknown at the moment) and then ran into that slower plane. The faster plane crashed and the two occupants were killed. The slower plane was able to continue flying and came around for a successful landing. The student and instructor in that plane were uninjured or had very minor injuries.
The bottom line of all of this is that this crash had nothing to do with Air Traffic Control. This one is entirely on the two aircraft that were involved.
You can get a quick rundown of the incident here - 7+ minutes from an active airline pilot who also flies his smaller planes on a regular basis, Juan Browne of the blancolirio channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTq6bdRBrWk--Peter
