A large model of a single propeller airplane at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, located 20 miles (32 km) from the crash site
At least one person is dead and as many as four people injured after two jets collided at an Arizona airport Monday afternoon, authorities said, the latest and fifth incident at a time where U.S. air safety is coming under heightened scrutiny.
The incident took place at Scottsdale Municipal Airport, which is located 22 miles (35 km) north of Phoenix at approximately 2:45 p.m. local time. A Learjet arriving from Austin veered off the runway into a parked jet, according to Kelli Kuester, a spokesperson for the airport.
“It appears that the (arriving plane’s) left main gear failed upon landing, resulting in the accident,” said Kuester.
“A Learjet 35A veered off the runway after landing and crashed into a Gulfstream 200 business jet on the ramp at Scottsdale Municipal Airport in Arizona around 2:45 p.m.,” the Federal Aviation Authority said in a statement. “There were four people on board the Learjet and one person on board the Gulfstream.”
The Learjet is owned by Motley Crue lead singer Vincent Neil, according to a filing with the Wyoming Secretary of State. It is unclear as to whether he was on the aircraft when the accident took place.
The aviation director for the airport, Gary Mascaro, offered his condolences to the victims, calling it a “tragedy.”
The Scottsdale crash was the fourth U.S. aviation incident in under two weeks that resulted in at least one death. A Bering Air Cessna regional aircraft with 10 people on board crashed last Thursday. An American Airlines regional flight operating by American Eagle and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided over and plunged into the Potomic River near Washington Ronald Reeagan National Airport on January 29 in which all 67 people on the two aircraft were killed. And on January 30, a Med Jets business jet with six people on board crashed in a neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia in the overnight period. All six were killed.
Globally, the Scottsdale incident was the fifth plane crash within the same period of time that resulted in at least one death.
At least two people were killed as a small plane crashed into a bus on busy road in São Paulo, Brazil last Friday. Two people on the small King Air plane were burned to death, according to military police, while six other people were injured, including a motorcyclist and a woman on the bus who were both hit by flying debris.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
