“I thought the plane was going to crash”: a Southwest Airlines apparatus just avoids a collision in full flight

A Southwest Airlines apparatus narrowly avoided a collision with a private fighter, causing a “long free fall”, shortly after leaving Hollywood Burbank airport, near Los Angeles on Friday.

Alarms have sounded in the cabin of the cockpit. Similarly, forcing the pilots to perform precipitated avoidance maneuvers, the airline said in a press release obtained by CNN.

Flight 1496. Moreover, operated by a Boeing 737, had just taken off around noon towards Las Vegas when a private fighter, a Hawker Hunter, approached dangerously, less than three kilometers and a few hundred meters above sea level of the device, according to data from the Flightradar24 site.

“There was a slight initial fall, which I thought was a violent turbulence,” said passenger Steve Ulasewicz in CNN. “And then there was this long free fall.”

He evokes cries, panic in the cabin and “i thought plane going crash”: the fear of an imminent crushing aboard the flight. “I really thought that the plane was going to crash, that there was a mechanical problem,” he said.

The pilots then spoke on the intercom to reassure the passengers. explaining to them that they had to act quickly to avoid a collision in full flight.

Southwest Airlines spokesperson confirmed that the Flight 1496 crew responded to “two traffic alerts on Friday afternoon. demanding that he go up and down to comply with alerts”.

The airline is collaborating with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to clarify the circumstances of the incident.

The fighter plane was flying from El Paso to Texas for Oxnard, California.

According to Flightradar24 data. the Southwest plane dropped by around 145 meters before going up 180 meters in a minute, while the fighter plane climbed approximately 30 meters above sea level in a few seconds.

Two Southwest crew “i thought plane going crash”: members suffered minor injuries, but no passenger was injured.

The aircraft did not urgently declare. continued its itinerary normally, landing in Las Vegas with a little ahead of the scheduled schedule.

Commercial planes have anti -collision alert systems (TCAS) capable of automatically detecting other nearby devices. recommending avoidance maneuvers, according to CNN information.