SkyWest pilot makes ‘aggressive maneuver’ to avoid B-52 midair collision

Watch SkyWest pilot makes ‘aggressive maneuver’ to avoid B-52 midair collision - Straight Arrow News on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Well, Terry, for those of you on the right-hand side, you probably saw the airplane kind of sort of coming at us.

00:04Nobody told us about it, and so we continued, and air traffic, and there's no radar here,

00:11so the tower is controlled, or excuse me, the tower does everything visually,

00:16and so they said report about a six-mile, and you're six miles from the airport.

00:20So we did that.

00:21I think he realized that the spacing wasn't going to work, and he said turn right,

00:25and I looked over, and there was an airplane, which those of you on the right-hand side,

00:31I thought it was a small airplane like the one you see at the airport right now doing touch-and-goes,

00:38and he said turn right, and I said there's an airplane over there, and he says turn left,

00:44and by the time we read back to clearance, looked over and saw the airplane that was kind of coming on a converging course with us,

00:52and so given his speed, it was the military, I don't know how fast they were going, but they were a lot faster than us.

00:57I felt it was the safest thing to do to turn behind it, so sorry about the aggressive maneuver.

01:01It caught me by surprise.

01:03This is not normal at all.

01:05I don't know why they didn't give us a heads-up, because the Air Force base does have radar,

01:10and nobody said, hey, there's also a B-52 in the pattern, so it didn't be.

01:16Long story short, it was not fun, but I do apologize for it,

01:21and thank you for understanding.

01:23It was not a fun day at work today, so have a nice evening, and I'm glad you're safe.