Delta flight swerves to evade speeding B-52 bomber in shocking near miss
The Delta regional jet was nearing Minot International Airport after a 90-minute flight from Minneapolis–Saint Paul when passengers and crew were startled as the pilot suddenly began making a series of sharp, unexpected turns, according to KMOT News.
Unbeknownst to the passengers at the time, the plane had come terrifyingly close to crashing into a massive military jet - B-52 Stratofortress - flying out of Minot Air Force Base.
'Being in the very front row, you feel everything, and those hard turns, you could tell something wasn't right,' Monica Green, a passenger on the flight, told the outlet.
The pilot's quick thinking aboard Delta Flight DL3788 - an Embraer E175 operated by SkyWest - may have saved hundreds of lives, despite unsettling passengers, after the plane came dangerously close to the military bomber.
As the pilot sharply swerved through the air to avoid disaster, passengers described the atmosphere onboard as 'weirdly calm,' despite the sudden and evasive maneuvers.
'We took a really hard turn, and that's when the pilot got on the intercom and said, '"sorry everybody, I'll explain everything when we land safely,"' Green told KMOT.
'The way he said it, it almost sounded like he was insinuating that landing safely might not be an option for a moment,' she added.
'We all just kind of looked at each other and stayed quiet.'
The flight circled Minot Airport several times before finally landing, with passengers sensing the rising tension among the crew. Some, including Green, quietly began texting loved ones - internally panicking as the gravity of the situation set in.
'He was very casual,' Green explained, describing the pilot's demeanor. 'If you can be casual about something like that.'
'But you could tell he was stressed,' she added. 'He was almost shaking, trying to find the right words, but he was nice and detailed. It felt good that they weren't just going to brush it off.'
Once the plane landed safely, the pilot addressed passengers over the public address system, explaining that air traffic control had instructed an abrupt course change due to inadequate separation from another aircraft on the approach path.
He told passengers he had received no prior warning about nearby military air traffic - something he noted was highly unusual, given Minot Air Force Base's radar capabilities.
Acting fast, he decided the safest move was to swerve the plane behind the bomber - hence the abrupt movements, according to video obtained by ABC News.
'Given his speed - I don't know how fast they were going, but they were a lot faster than us, I felt it was the safest thing to do to turn behind it,' the pilot said once on the ground.
'So sorry about the aggressive maneuver, it caught me by surprise, this is not normal at all. I don't know why they didn't give us a heads up, because the Air Force base does have radar,' he added.
'Long story short, it was not fun, but I do apologize for it, and thank you for understanding. Not a fun day at work.'
Exactly how close the two aircraft came remains unknown, as does whether any cockpit warning systems were triggered during the near miss, according to ABC.
Although Green couldn't see the bomber from her seat, she later overheard tense conversations in the small airport terminal - passengers and crew quietly discussing just how close the collision had actually been.
'When we landed, it was really quiet. No one stood up right away like people normally do,' she told KMOT.
'At the airport, I heard some people saying their friends saw it from the ground. The other plane nearly hit us, and it went so low it passed under us.'
SkyWest has since launched an investigation into the incident, a spokesperson told ABC in a statement.
'SkyWest flight 3788, operating as Delta Connection from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Minot, North Dakota, landed safely in Minot after being cleared for approach by the tower but performed a go-around when another aircraft became visible in their flight path,' the statement read. 'We are investigating the incident.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The ultimate orgasm secret women don't talk about. For many, it's the only way to reach the finish line - and men won't like it... ASK JANA
Dear Jana, I'm 46, engaged for the first time, and have an eight-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. I've worked hard to build a stable life for us.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Bombshell new investigation into Pennsylvania's Roswell as mystery of UFO crash deepens
An eyewitness to the supposed crash-landing of a UFO in a small Pennsylvania town nearly 60 years ago now claims investigators have made new, startling discoveries about the incident. On December 9, 1965, people in seven US states and Canada reported seeing a giant fiery object lighting up the night sky. Ronnie Strubel, 82, lived in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, at the time and described it as a 'fireball with a red rooster tail behind it'. Contrary to more recent reports where witnesses claim UFOs they saw were unnaturally quick, Strubel told Daily Mail the object he saw was moving about as fast as a commercial airplane. Then, he said, it came down in a wooded area in the unincorporated town of Kecksburg, which lies in Westmoreland County. 'It only took like 15 or 20 minutes for us to get out to the site, and the military was already there,' he said. But in the decades since, this strange event likely seen by thousands of people has largely been erased from the collective memory. That is, until the History Channel aired a documentary on the subject earlier this month, where a mix of experts used modern technology to uncover what may have happened all those years ago in Kecksburg. The 42-minute long episode, titled 'Pennsylvania's Roswell', was part of reality TV series Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, a show that focuses on sites around the country where there has been supposed paranormal activity. Strubel and another local, Bill Weaver, were featured in the episode. During a shot near the crash site, Strubel told the same story, but Weaver added some more context about the government response. 'The police and the military, they were all over the place. And there were guys out there in dark suits. They were the ones that seemed to be in charge,' Weaver said. 'While we were standing there watching what was going on, the state police and the military came up to us and they told us, "If you don't move, we're going to confiscate your car." And I figured I better move,' he added. Hosts Andy Bustamante, an ex-CIA officer, and Paul Beban, an award-winning journalist, unpacked much of the lore surrounding the UFO sighting and crash. This included the persisting claim from longtime residents that the object they saw was shaped like an acorn. An acorn-like model of the alleged UFO has been sitting outside the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Station since the 1990, when it was created as a prop for the NBC show 'Unsolved Mysteries.' They also discussed many of the explanations that were thrown out by the federal government in the days, months and years after the incident. Very early reports quoted astronomers claiming it was merely a meteor, but this didn't hold much credibility because of the unprecedented military presence documented by witnesses and local media. NASA still maintains that it was likely a meteor, but also acknowledges speculation that it could have been Soviet satellite. Beban said the strangest thing about the case was that it got plenty of media attention at the time before it 'faded from view' under 'a cloak of secrecy'. Bustamante and Beban turned to the expertise of technologist Pete Kelsey in hopes that he would be able to uncover the exact site of the UFO crash. Kelsey used LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) imaging from a drone and slam scanner to get a topographic map of the ground, which would reveal possible impact points. Later, the team gathered to look at the results of the scan and found what Kelsey called a patch of 'man-made earth work'. 'It's level against this otherwise very steep slope. Straight lines, right angles. Those kinds of things do not occur in nature,' he said. They then returned to that exact spot with handheld spectrum analyzers to measure the radio waves. The alleged crash site had a vastly different radio signature than a spot just 20 feet away, which had a flat frequency. 'This doesn't make any sense. How is there a radio signal in one place that doesn't exist just a few feet away? That's not how radio energy works,' Bustamante said. 'We're getting even more evidence that suggests that there really was something strange that happened on this spot, in this ravine, in Kecksburg,' he added. 'We might have actually found the real crash site.' Strubel revealed these findings at this past weekend's 20th annual Kecksburg UFO Festival, an event he founded with permission from the fire department in 2005. Strubel himself is a 50-year veteran of the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department, once serving as chief. The three-day festival routinely attracts thousands of visitors from all over the United States and the world as a whole, he told Daily Mail. 'We've had people from Japan, from Germany, from England with this little town event that we have,' he said. The first two days of the festival were not solely dedicated to the extraterrestrial, with attendees enjoying a cornhole competition, a parade, fireworks and even a hotdog eating contest. 'Years ago, we used to have a street fair, and that went to the wayside. And this was our idea for some kind of event to draw a little bit of money into the community. So we started the UFO Fest,' Strubel said. It remains unclear what truly happened in Kecksburg six decades ago, but the mythos surrounding the UFO crash is clearly buoying the area to this day.
BBC News
12 hours ago
- BBC News
Marine debris from US found washed up on Isles of Scilly
A marine litter enthusiast on the Isles of Scilly says she has collected about 15,000 pieces of marine debris since February, including a lobster trap tag from the Banfield said she recently traced the tag via social media back to a fishing village off the Maine coast 3,000 miles (4,828km) away "as the crow flies".She said both the US and Canadian governments had strict rules about how, when and where fishing took place, including the use of lobster trap tags."I posted on a local Facebook group I'm part of full of American and Canadian lobster fisheries, and they're incredibly helpful and supportive in trying to track things down and find out where their gear has got to," she said. She added the tag had the name Jim MacDonald on it and a family member of his had informed her that it came from North Haven."It's a little island off the coast of Maine and this tag travelled 3,000 miles (4,828km) as the crow flies," said Ms Banfield."In the ocean it's going around in circles and sort of wizzes all over the place. It's actually travelled a lot further."She said tags were regularly found washed up on beaches on the Isles of Scilly. Ms Banfield said the purpose of her group, called Scilly Coastal Clean-up, was to collect the items and sort them to be said: "In the future, we're going to send things away that can be recycled. Anything that can't be recycled, our local council are very kindly disposing of free of charge."She said the general response when beach visitors saw her clean was "very supportive".However, she added there was a high percentage of people who were "absolutely horrified" by the amount of litter washed up on the beaches. "I explain to visitors that things haven't come from Scilly, probably about 98% to 99% of what we pick up on our beaches have come from other locations," she hopes to organise community beach cleans in the appealed to anyone who carried out a beach clean on the islands in future to let her know so she could collect and sort the marine debris for recycling.
