Mid-air in California

Rich Ahrens wrote:
C J Campbell wrote:
That fact that it is extremely rare probably does not make anyone
involved feel any better about it.

There were four souls lost in the collision between a 152 and a 172.
AP and CNN say one of them was in a car in the ground and the rest on
board the planes. UPI says two of the victims were on the ground. I
suppose it will take some time to straighten out what happened.

And, true to form, the ABC station's live-on-the-scene bimbo noted that
they had been unable to determine yet if either plane had filed a flight
plan with the Corona airport. Good grief.

Now it's two in each plane and one on the ground, and a 150 and 172.

I like this bit from the LA Times:

"Without assessing a cause for Sunday's accident, Pollack noted that the
airport has no flight control tower. 'It's considered to be an
uncontrolled airport,' he told reporters."

(Pollack is NTSB investigator Wayne Pollack.) There's no context around
that passage to explain that uncontrolled airports are the norm or that
primary responsibility for avoiding traffic falls on pilots under VFR.
Whether the reporters intended it or not (and I doubt they did),
unknowledgeable readers are going to think the lack of a tower had to be
a cause of this accident.