The Region : Air Cal Jet Narrowly Avoids Collision

An Air Cal jet airliner was forced to take violent evasive action to avoid colliding with a single-engine light plane that blundered into its landing path at John Wayne Orange County Airport. No injuries were reported, but authorities were searching for the offending airplane and its pilot. “At this time it’s an unknown Cessna 172. We don’t know who was flying it or where it was going,” said Russell Park of the Federal Aviation Administration. Park said the incident occurred about eight miles northwest of the airport as the four-engine AirCal British Aerospace 146 jetliner was about to turn into its final approach. Jay Maag, air traffic control tower manager at the airport, said the incident was not reported to tower officials there and that the only information was from the pilot’s radio report to the FAA’s Coast Terminal Radar Approach Control at El Toro Marine Base.