In a year plagued by air disasters, a pilot of a Delta airline operated by SkyWest has avoided a tragedy with a quick and sharp maneuver that narrowly avoided a collision with a U.S. B-52 bomber, an incident for which U.S. aviation regulators have opened an investigation, reports Afp.
According to videos recorded by passengers and posted on social media, the plane from Minneapolis, Minnesota was preparing to land on Friday in Minot, North Dakota, when the pilot changed direction.
"'Turn right,' the control tower told me. I said 'there's a plane there' and (the tower) told me 'turn left'," the pilot can be heard saying in a video taken by a passenger, posted on Instagram. "Considering its speed, it was a military plane, I don't know at what speed it was going, but it was much faster (than us). I thought the safest thing to do was to make a detour," he adds. "I'm sorry for this aggressive maneuver. I was surprised. This is not normal at all," the pilot continued.
The Flight Radar flight tracking website shows the plane's trajectory, which makes a large loop before landing.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement that U.S. authorities are "investigating the incident related to SkyWest Airlines flight 3788 at Minot International Airport on Friday, July 18."
SkyWest also stated that it has opened an investigation. The flight had clearance from the control tower, "but made a detour when another plane became visible in its flight path," the airline detailed in a statement, cited by U.S. media.
The Air Force told the Washington Post that a B-52 bomber was flying over Minot that day, where there is both a civilian airport and a military base.
As heard from the pilot in the video, this airport does not have radar and the control tower operates visually.
The incident occurs less than six months after a U.S. Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines plane approaching Washington's Reagan National Airport. All 67 people on board both aircraft died.
The disaster led federal authorities and Congress to review the coordination between military and civilian aircraft flying in the same airspace.