It's my understanding that John Wayne Airport is among the busiest,and most important,airports in Southern California.Several of the country's largest airlines operate flights to ORD,DFW,SEA and ATL.It's not difficult for me to imagine the chaos that a light aircraft could cause at an airport like this.
If he *had* caused serious harm and I had been on the jury of a criminal trial I may very well have voted guilty.If he had caused harm/damage and I was a juror in a civil trial I absolutely would have awarded the victims millions...many,*many* millions.
Yes, it's busy with commercial traffic, but it also has a lot of general aviation traffic with several flight schooles operating there as well as a whole bunch of privately-owned airplanes.
IOW, the tower is used to mixing both types of aircraft without chaos.
It has two runways, 20L, which is 2800' long and is used by the putt-putts, and 20R, 5200' long, which is used by the commercial traffic and the putt-putts.
He was supposed to be landing on 20L. He has flown in there on more than one occasion and was clearly distracted by something that day that took his mind off the task at hand, in this case, landing his airplane.