Southwest Flight Narrowly Avoids Midair Collision

CNN reports:

Alarms sounded in the cockpit of a Southwest Airlines jet shortly after taking off from Hollywood Burbank airport near Los Angeles on Friday, prompting evasive maneuvers, the airline said in a statement. Southwest Flight 1496, operating on a Boeing 737, took off just before noon local time on a short flight to Las Vegas. After less than six minutes in the air, a privately owned Hawker Hunter fighter jet, crossed less than two miles in front of it within a few hundred feet of its altitude.

“There was a small initial drop that I thought was just like really bad turbulence,” passenger Steve Ulasewicz told CNN. “And then after that, there was this long free fall.” He describes being terrified, people screaming and pandemonium in the cabin. “I definitely thought that the plane was going down, that there was a mechanical issue with it,” Ulasewicz said. Eventually the pilots got on the intercom and told the passengers they had to maneuver the plane to avoid the midair collision.

Read the full article. “Privately owned fighter jet”? Passengers are interviewed in the video reports below