“No one told us anything,” said the pilot, who had to explain to passengers what happened
A driver who was driving a Delta Air Lines regional jet apologized to his passengers after making a closed turn to avoid colliding with a US Air Force B-52 bomber, according to the incident audio.
The incident occurred on Skywest flight 3788, which was operating as a flight from Delta Connection from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Minot, Northern Dakota, Skywest said in a statement.
The flight landed safely in Minot “after being allowed to approach the tower, but made a deviation when another aircraft became visible on his flight trajectory,” reads in the statement.
The B-52 involved was carrying out a flyfish on the Northern Dakota State Fair enclosure to honor the city of Minot as a “large American defense community,” Minot Air Force base in a statement said.
“The overflow was planned in advance and approved by the Federal Administration of Aviation,” said the base. “This included the district office of local flight standards of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the air traffic control staff at Minot International Airport and Minot approach control.”
The bomber flew in a waiting standard about 16 kilometers east from the fair and continued to communicate with air traffic controllers in the approach control, as well as the tower throughout the flight, according to the base statement.
“The tower did not warn about the arrival of the commercial aircraft,” the statement said.
The air traffic control tower is operated by a contractor and not directly by FAA, but the agency is now investigating what happened, according to a statement sent to CNN on Monday.
The contractor, Midwest ATC, declined to comment.
In the audio of a video published on, the pilot can be heard to explain what happened and that the plane was “more or less coming towards us.”
“No one told us anything,” hears the unidentified pilot to say.
He added that the tower asked him to perform six miles from the airport.
After contacting the tower, he said he turned right, but saw the plane on the right side, so the air controller told him to turn left.
According to him, the speed of the plane indicated that it was a military plane.
“I don’t know what speed they went, but they were much faster than us,” he said. “I thought the safest thing to do was turn behind him.”
In the end, the pilot apologized for the “aggressive maneuver.” “It got me in surprise,” said the pilot.
“In short, it was not fun, I apologize for it and thank you for your understanding,” he added before being received with applause.
Delta Air Lines referred to CNN to Skywest Airlines when details were requested about the incident.
The passenger Monica Green said the flight was preparing to land when she felt the plane give a bump “as if we had done the reversal of march,” he told CNN.
A B-52 bomber from Minot Air Base performs a fly over at the Northern Dakota State Fair, on July 18, in Minot, Dakota do Norte. Northern Dakota Governor’s Office/AP
It was then that he heard the pilot apologize for the intercom. He said he would explain everything as soon as he landed the plane safely.
Green, who travels hard for work, said she had never been like anything like what happened that day.
“I am pleased with the transparency of the pilot. I feel better because the pilot said something about it and warned consumers,” he said.
The B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range heavy bomber, capable of taking a variety of missions, according to high subscribers to altitudes up to 50,000 feet and can carry “accurate nuclear or conventional ammunition with precision with precision navigation worldwide”.
It is huge, with eight jet engines and a wingspan of about 185 feet. It can take off with a weight of about 488 thousand pounds. The 70 -seat regional jet has about half of the width and can take off with less than one fifth of weight – about 85,000 pounds.
Alexandra Skores, from CNN, contributed to this report.
