Police identify 2 people who died in Feb. 19 midair collision at southern Arizona airport
MARANA, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities have publicly identified two people killed two weeks ago in the midair collision of two small planes at a southern Arizona airport.
Police say 70-year-old Michael Reinath and 76-year-old Linda Gifford died in the Feb. 19 collision at the Marana Regional Airport on the outskirts of Tucson. Reinath and Gifford lived in Rio Vista, California.
Federal Aviation Administration documents say the Lancair 360 MK II involved in the crash was registered to Reinath.
Investigators say each plane had two people aboard when they collided. One plane landed uneventfully and the Lancair with Reinath and Gifford hit the ground near a runway and caught fire.
The collision came more than a week after a plane crash in Scottsdale killed one of two pilots of a private jet owned by Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil. That aircraft veered off a runway and hit a business jet.
In late January, 67 people were killed in a midair collision in Washington, D.C., involving an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter, marking the United States’ deadliest aviation disaster since 2001. Just a day later, a medical transport jet with a child patient, her mother and four others aboard crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood on Jan. 31, exploding in a fireball that engulfed several homes. That crash killed seven people, including all those aboard, and injured 19 others.
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