NTSB investigators are now at the scene where the remains lie of a North American Rockwell Sabreliner and a Cessna 172 that collided yesterday morning as they were approaching to land at California's San Diego-Brown Field Municipal Airport. The collision, which took the lives of all five people aboard both airplanes, occurred about two miles northeast of the controlled airport.
At press time, there were conflicting reports about whether the air traffic control tower at Brown Field was open at the time of the accident. Its scheduled hours of operation are listed as 8:00 a.m. to 8 p.m., local time. The Sabreliner, carrying four people, was registered to military contractor BAE Systems, which said in a statement that its employees were aboard the aircraft conducting a training flight for the U.S. Navy. The pilot of the Cessna was on a cross-country flight, according to the Safety Board.
Brown Field is about 13 miles southeast of San Diego, where one of the worst midairs on record happened. The September 1978 collision between a Cessna 172 and a PSA Boeing 727 took the lives of all 137 people on the two airplanes and seven people on the ground.