The U.S. Air Force and commercial airline SkyWest Airlines are trying to learn more about a July 18 incident in which a North Dakota-based B-52 Stratofortress may have had a near miss with a passenger plane.
SkyWest said in a statement to Air Force Times that its flight 3788 was flying from Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota, on Friday evening. Air traffic controllers cleared flight 3788 to approach Minot International Airport for a landing when “another aircraft became visible in their flight path,” SkyWest said.
The commercial plane aborted the landing and circled above the airport, before landing safely at the airport, the airline’s statement said. SkyWest said the company is now investigating the incident.
An Air Force spokesperson confirmed a B-52 from Minot Air Force Base held a flyover of the North Dakota State Fair that evening, but stopped short of confirming the near miss happened or saying an investigation was underway.
“We are aware of the recent reporting regarding commercial and Air Force aircraft operating in airspace around Minot International Airport,” the spokesperson said. “We are currently looking into the matter.”
A video of the aftermath, recorded by a passenger identified as Monica Green and later circulated by multiple news outlets, shows the pilot explaining to passengers over the plane’s intercom system what had just happened.
“He [the air traffic controller] said turn right,” the pilot can be heard saying. “I said, ‘There’s an airplane over there.’ And he says, turn left.”
That’s when the pilot saw the other airplane “was kind of coming on a converging course with us,” he told passengers.
The pilot said the other plane was a military aircraft that was flying “a lot faster than us,” and “I felt it was the safest thing to do, to turn behind it.”
“Sorry about the aggressive maneuver,” the pilot said. “It caught me by surprise. This is not normal at all. … Long story short, it was not fun, but I do apologize for it, and thank you for understanding.”
Passengers can be heard applauding after the pilot concluded by saying, “Not a fun day at work.”
The New York Times reported that Green said the plane veered dramatically to the right, so sharply that she was looking at cornfields out of the window.
The Times also reported that the pilot wondered why Minot Air Force Base “didn’t give us a heads up,” and “nobody said, ‘Hey, there’s also a B-52 in the pattern.”
This near miss occurred six months after a deadly midair collision over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, involving an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger aircraft, which killed 67 people.
And on May 1, just a few months after that fatal crash, another Army Black Hawk’s path in the D.C. airspace forced two passenger jets to change course and fly around Reagan National, raising further alarms.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
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