B-52 bomber nearly hit two different planes in North Dakota last month, NTSB says

Shortly after an airliner had an aggressive maneuver to avoid collision with a B-52 last month on the North Dakota, the bomber collided with a small private plane while he was flying in front of Minot airport, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The investigators published their preliminary report on the July 19 incident on Wednesday which occurred after the bomber completed an overview at the North Dakota State in Minot. The call with Delta Flight 3788 is well known due to a video, a passenger photo of the pilot’s announcement after making a brutal turn to avoid the bomber. But the fact that the B-52 later came to a third of a mile from a small Piper plane had not been reported before.

The Skywest pilot told his passengers that day that he had been surprised to see the bomber looming right, and the US Air Force also said that air traffic controllers had never warned the B-52 crew of the nearby airliner. The officials said at the time that the overflight had been cleaned with the FAA and the private controllers who supervise Minot airport in advance.

These tight calls were only the latest incidents to raise issues on air security as a result of January’s open -air collision on Washington, DC, who killed 67 people.

The NTSB report does not identify the cause of incidents, but the transcription of the conversation between the three planes, the air traffic controller in service in Minot and a regional FAA controller in a Radar City radar center, in the southern Dakota, show that several confused orders were published by the tower that day. Investigators will not publish their final report on the cause until next year.

With the B-52 and Delta planes converging at the airport in different directions, the controller told Delta Plane who was carrying 80 people to fly in a circle to the right until the pilot tells the controller that he did not want to do it because the bombardier was on his right, so he broke his approach.

“Sorry for the aggressive maneuver. It surprised me by surprise,” may be heard the pilot saying on the video that a passenger posted on social networks. “It’s not normal at all. I don’t know why they didn’t give us an advance.”

At one point, the controller intended to give the instructions of the Delta plan but mistakenly called the bombardier call signal and had to cancel this order.

Less than a minute after the B-52 crossed the Airline path, it almost struck the small plane which also turned while the bomber stole at the airport on the way back to Minot Air Force Base where 26 of the bombers are based.

Aegage safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate plane accidents for the NTSB and the FAA, said the controller did not give orders to make Delta and Piper planes run early enough to stay at a bombardier safety distance.

The transcription shows that the local controller calling the regional FAA controller to obtain authorization each time before publishing an order for planes. Guzzetti said it is not clear if taking this additional step to consult the other controller had delayed orders or if the Minot controller simply did not provide how much the planes would occur.

“Everything met at the same time very quickly, and this controller was not above,” said Guzzetti.

Minot airport generally manages between 18 and 24 flights per day. But right now, three planes all arrived at the same time.

After tight calls, all planes landed safely.

These closing calls from the North Dakota highlight the little airports like Minot which are managed without their own radar systems, but it is not clear if this contract program which includes 265 airport turns on a national scale had something to do with the incident. There was a controller by endowing the Minot tower at the time of the incident, and a controller in a regional radar center in Rapid City helped direct planes in the region.