Posted on 07/25/2025 6:11:44 PM PDT by george76
A Southwest flight that departed Burbank, California, en route to Las Vegas, Nevada, nosedived to avoid a mid-air collision on Friday.
Two flight attendants were injured after the plane quickly descended to avoid colliding with a Hawker Hunter.
“The other plane, a Hawker Hunter with the N number N335AX, was at an altitude of approximately 14,653 feet when the Southwest flight began to descend,” ABC News reported.
Passengers reportedly flew out of their seats.
ABC News posted the flight tracker showing the near miss:
...
A Southwest flight rapidly descended 475 feet to avoid a Hawker Hunter aircraft on Friday, according to flight tracking data and passengers on the plane.
About six minutes after Southwest flight 1496 took off from Hollywood Burbank Airport in Los Angeles County, it abruptly descended from 14,100 feet to 13,625 feet, according to flightRadar24.
Steve Ulasewicz, a passenger on the flight who said that they experienced what felt like a “significant drop,” told ABC News the pilot announced that they had performed the maneuver to “avoid a midair collision.”
Southwest Airlines said in a statement that two flight attendants are being treated for injuries after the incident.
A terrified passenger described what happened the moment the Southwest plane quickly descended to avoid collision.
“About 10 minutes into the flight, we plummeted pretty far, and I looked around, and everyone was like, ‘OK, that’s normal’,
“Then, within two seconds, it felt like the ride Tower of Terror, where we fell 20 to 30 feet in the air. The screaming, it was terrifying. We really thought we were plummeting to a plane crash
See post 11.
Was Center sleeping?
A good question.
You are correct. If they hit the ceiling it is on them. When I travel when the seat belt sign goes off I will loosen my seat belt a few inches for comfort but never take it off except for going to the bathroom. The air hostess will walk about during the late stage of climb to crusie altitude as they prepare for drink and meal services.
The Hawker Hunter was a British Made Jet Trainer used to transition pilots to high performance fighter jets. It was a good aircraft. Today it is used by the “Red Arrows” the RAF acrobatic team. They will perform a magnificent airshow I have seen often while living in the UK.
Forgot to add this. The SW flight was definitely under positive control by ATC. If that Hawker Hunter jet was on a trip to ELP it would be climbing to cruise altitude of about 30k and under positive control by ATC.
Unless the Hawker was violating normal IFR flight rules, this is on ATC.
I well remember ATC giving me vectors into a Thunder Storm many years ago. I was given a vector and then saw and heard a lighting bolt just a few hundred yards away, I was IFR. I politely said, N65—D declines the vector and please get me out of this storm. When I got on the ILS I could not hold proper altitude withing 100 feet due to extreme turbulence. At 1000 feet I broke out into perfectly smooth air and great visibility. South Louisiana Thunderstorms can be fierce in August.
People with aviophobia must be feeling really tense with every one of the stories. Door blows off. Wheel falls off on landing. Near miss of a B-52 in midair. Plane clips another’s tail while taxiing.
The late humor writer Lewis Grizzard ( I read about 90% of his books) hated to fly. He noted that after the first successful Wright Brothers flight it was very soon after that the first fatality happened. Thomas E. Selfridge (for whom Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base, formerly AFB, was named after.
Details:
Thomas Selfridge was the first person to die in a powered aircraft accident. He was a passenger on a Wright Flyer during a military demonstration at Fort Myer, Virginia, on September 17, 1908, when the aircraft crashed.
The crash occurred after a propeller broke and struck a support wire, causing the plane to plunge to the ground. Selfridge suffered a fractured skull and died later that day. Orville Wright, the pilot, was seriously injured but survived.
Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, took a later flight with the Wright Brothers and made it just fine.
:-)
“At only 14 K I’m sure the seatbelt light was still aluminated.”
Also my first thought for both passengers and crew. There is usually a statement in the pre-flight about being buckled anytime you are in your seat. But what’s a couple of crushed vertebrae to a real man who doesn’t need to follow any common sense safety rules, right???
BTW - illuminated.
RE: I always wear my seatbelt.
I wear mine at my laptop when posting on FR about flying. Just in case.
You are thinking of the Hawker (now BAE) Hawk. The US Navy uses a variant, the T-45 Goshawk, today.
The Hunter is a 50's vintage fighter.
Don’t forget who destroyed the ATC infrastructure.
Kinda hard to ignore the TCAS warnings.
Time traveling. It just appeared after going through a time portal.
There’s a company out there that bought several. They have military contracts to train USAF. The Hunters simulate the profile of an inbound cruise missile mostly.
“The Hawker Hunter was a British Made Jet Trainer”
No... it was a front line fighter plane and later used in an attack role. Not the same as the Hawker T1 trainer.
The TCAS system typically provides a Resolution Advisory (RA) warning about 15 to 35 seconds before the predicted closest point of approach (CPA), depending on altitude and encounter geometry. Pilots are expected to begin responding to an RA within about 5 seconds, with an optimal response ideally within 2.5 to 5 seconds.
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