Southwest flight almost collides in the air with a jet. Six injured

Passengers initially believed their Southwest flight was experiencing turbulence until the plane suddenly plummeted rapidly just after taking off from Hollywood Burbank Airport on its way to Las Vegas, several news outlets reported on Saturday.

The crew “responded to two onboard traffic alerts… requiring them to climb and descend to comply with the alerts”, Southwest said in an official statement.

According to CNN, the plane was nearly intercepted by a privately owned Hawker Hunter fighter jet after only five minutes in the air.

The jet crossed less than two miles in front of it, and within a few hundred feet of its altitude, CNN reported, citing flight tracking data. It had departed from El Paso, Texas, and was flying to Oxnard, California. Initially, Southwest reported no injuries were immediately reported by customers, although it acknowledged that two flight attendants were being treated for injuries. 

‘It landed uneventfully’ in Las Vegas

“We appreciate the professionalism of our Flight Crew and Flight Attendants in responding to this event,” Southwest’s statement said. “Nothing is more critical to Southwest than the Safety of our Customers and Employees.”

“The flight continued to Las Vegas, where it landed uneventfully,” the airline press office added. “Southwest is engaged with the Federal Aviation Administration to understand the circumstances further.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was investigating the incident. It comes less than one week after a similar near-miss.

“Ensuring the safety of everyone in the national airspace system remains our top priority,” the FAA statement added.

Witnessed the near-miss

Stand-up comedian Jimmy Dore was on board the plane and was among the passengers, saying that the erratic move was due to a near-miss with another plane.

“Pilot said his collision warning went off & he needed to avoid the plane coming at us. Wow,” Dore wrote on X. “A flight attendant needed medical attention.”

He said several people, including him, “flew out of their seats and bumped heads on the ceiling.”

Caitlin Burdi told Fox News that passengers were “screaming” as the plane rapidly fell. “It was terrifying. We really thought we were plummeting to a plane crash,” she said.

She added that the pilot came over the speaker afterwards to say that the plane had almost hit another plane, and that they had lost contact with air traffic control.

Stef Zamorano posted a video of herself on X with a man next to her, who she says, out of fear, clenched her arm.

‘We almost collided with another plane’

“I just remember him saying, ‘What just happened was we almost collided with another plane, and I had to make the emergency attempt to go under because we lost service with the air traffic controller,’” she said.

This incident comes less than one week after a Delta regional flight from Minneapolis was forced to make a sudden evasive manoeuvre to avoid a US military bomber.