Southwest flight plummets, injuring flight attendants
Friday, a Southwest Airlines plane quickly dropped after leaving the Los Angeles region, with passengers displaying online that the pilot was forced to quickly change the course to avoid a potential collision with another plane.
The flight 1496 of Hollywood Burbank airport in Las Vegas quickly fell, relaxing the passengers from their seats and injuring two on -board agents.
The crew “responded to two traffic alerts on board … Forcing them to climb and descend to comply with alerts,” Southwest said in a statement.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that it was investigating “the incident”. It comes less than a week after a quasi-very similar.
“Ensuring everyone’s safety in the national airspace system remains our top priority,” added the FAA press release.
The actor standing Jimmy Dore was on the plane and was one of the passengers saying that the erratic movement was due to an almost accident with another plane.
“Pilot said that his collision warning took place and that he needed to avoid the plane to come to us. Wow,” wrote Dore on X. “A on -board agent needed medical care.”
His colleague Stef Zamorano added that all the passengers applauded when the plane landed.
Caitlin Burdi told Fox News that passengers “shouted” when the plane was falling quickly.
“It was terrifying. We really thought we had dropped to a plane crash,” she said.
She added that the pilot later came the speaker to say that the plane had almost hit another plane and that they had lost contact with air traffic control.
“I just remember that he had said:” What just happened is that we almost collided with another plane, and I had to make sure that the urgency tried to pass because we lost the service with the air traffic controller “,” she said.
According to CNN, the plane was almost intercepted by a private Hawker hunter fighter after less than six minutes in the air.
The jet crossed less than two miles in front of him, and a few hundred feet from his altitude, reported CNN, citing flight tracking data. He had left El Pas, in Texas and flew for Oxnard, California.
The southwest press release said that the flight continued to Las Vegas, “where it landed without incident”, and that the airline is “committed” to the FAA “to better understand the circumstances”.
“We appreciate the professionalism of our flight team and our on-board agents to respond to this event. Nothing is more important for the Southwest than the security of our customers and our employees.”
It comes less than a week after a regional flight of Delta de Minneapolis was forced to make a sudden evasive maneuver to avoid an American military bomber.
