A busy traffic pattern and a controller's mistaken identity of an aircraft led to the midair collision of a Sabreliner jet and a Cessna 172 near San Diego in 2015, the NTSB found. All four on board the Sabreliner twin-engine aircraft and the solo pilot in a Cessna 172 were killed on Aug. 16 during landing approaches at Brown Field Municipal Airport. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported this week the Cessna 172 pilot was Michael A. Copeland, an executive at the San Diego-based tech company Qualcomm. The Sabreliner, called Eagle1, was registered to military contractor BAE Systems, with company employees on board. The NTSB's probable cause was a controller's "failure to properly identify the aircraft in the pattern and to ensure control instructions provided to the intended Cessna on downwind were being performed before turning Eagle1 into its path for landing."
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/ntsb-controller-error-led-to-midair-collision