“Myself and many people have been ejected from our headquarters and hit the ceiling with the head,” said humorist Jimmy Dore on the social network X, who was on this flight between Burbank and Las Vegas, in the west of the country.
“The pilot said that his collision warning had triggered and that he should avoid an plane that came straight about us,” he added.
The American aviation regulator (FAA) indicated on X that it was investigating “the event”. The flight 1496 of Southwest Airlines “reacted to an on -board alert indicating that another plane was in the vicinity,” confirmed the Federal Agency.
For its part, the airline explained that the plane “reacted to two traffic alerts on board Friday afternoon during the initial climb of Burbank, California, forcing it to go up and down to comply with alerts”. “The flight continued to Las Vegas, where he landed without incident,” Southwest continued.
Unharmed passengers
Two crew members had to be treated for injuries, added the company, adding that all passengers were unharmed.
The airliner was in the same airspace near Burbank as a fighter plane Hawker Hunter MK. 58, according to the Flightaware flight tracking site.
This incident is strengthening questions about air security in the United States, after a series of accidents in recent months. The US government announced in early May a “complete modernization” of the American air traffic control system which suffers from a shortage of controllers in the towers managed by the FAA.
The government has also dismissed hundreds of FAA employees, as part of its project to reduce the enrollment of the federal state.
