Juan Brown did a real good analysis on his channel this morning. It appears the Cirrus was second in line with a plane ahead making a right pattern for 17R. The Metroliner was on long final for 17L. The controller called out traffic to the Cirrus referencing both aircraft, but it’s possible the Cirrus didn’t see the Metroliner on the straight-in approach.
It also doesn’t help the thresholds are staggered and the runways are of different lengths. I’ll bet the pilot of the Cirrus never saw the Metroliner and was just a little sloppy in his turn to final for 17R.
Juan had the radar track up on his site with the ATC overlay. Both GA aircraft made a wide turn to 17R and intruded on the approach to 17L.
Fortunately, they are both alive to learn from the accident. Another possible contributor was the controller who wasn’t very clear in his traffic call outs to the Cirrus. He seemed to be preoccupied or was just going through the motions. His radio traffic seemed less than professional.
Just my two-cents.
That would be about right. It isn’t hard to overshoot 17R when the wind is howling. Speed control is also a significant issue on 17R to be able to turn without crossing into 17L traffic. Seeing metro is would be also hard, so unless the Cirrus called that they saw it, the tower controller should have asked them to continue downwind until the traffic was seen or had passed.
We get a lot of ATC trainees at the airport. Some of them are terrible AA hires.