By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
A deadly mid-air collision between two planes in San Diego in 2015 was the fault of pilots and air traffic controllers, the National Transportation Safety Board reports.
The new report lays most of the blame on air traffic controllers, 10 News reports.
Moments before the collision between a Sabreliner jet and a Cessna, which killed five people, an air traffic control trainee was overwhelmed while getting on-the-job training.
A controller is limited to handling seven aircraft, but on this day, the workload was nine. NTSB concluded that the controller told the pilot of the Cessna to make a 360-degree turn, which resulted in the collision.
Some of the blame also belongs to the pilots, who could have avoided the collision, the report states. The pilots should have shown more “situational awareness,” which would have enabled them to “take evasive action in time to avert the collision.”
