The Nation - News from Jan. 6, 1988

Errors by air traffic controllers were to blame for the collision last May 1 of a skywriting plane and another small aircraft near Orlando, Fla., in which all four people aboard the two planes were killed, a federal investigation concluded. The National Transportation Safety Board in its report on the accident said that the collision occurred as a result of a mix-up when one of the aircraft was being handed off from one controller to another. The safety board also cited as contributing factors in the accident the failure of air traffic control radar to continually track the two aircraft before the collision and the lack of traffic advisories to the pilots.