The Dec. 12 recording of the conversation between air traffic control and the pilot of the JetBlue passenger plane reporting a near-midair collision with a U.S. Air Force refueling plane flying towards Venezuela, without its transponder on, is now widely reported.
“We almost had a midair collision up here,” the pilot told air traffic control, while his plane was still in the ascent phase, after taking off from the island of Curaçao to head back to New York. “They passed directly in our flight path. … They don’t have their transponder turned on,” in order not to transmit its location. That meant that neither air traffic control nor the pilot had advance warning until the plane came into the pilot’s sight.
“It’s outrageous…. We just had traffic pass directly in front of us within 5 miles of us—maybe 2 or 3 miles—but it was an air-to-air refueler from the United States Air Force and he was at our altitude. We had to stop our climb,” the pilot added, reported in The Hill on Dec. 15.
According to the JetBlue pilot, the Air Force tanker was heading towards Venezuelan airspace.
