Featured Image Credit: AirNav Radar
Topics: Travel, US News, Washington
Joe Yates
There have been more than 150 plane and helicopter accidents involving US aircrafts this year alone, and that figure was almost two higher after a military jet came within feet of colliding with a commercial airline.
A transcript has since been revealed which shows the pilot's hair-raising reaction to his plane, with 137 passengers onboard, almost colliding with a US Air Force jet close to Reagan National Airport - where a military chopper collided with an American Airlines-owned plane, on January 29.
The incident earlier this year in Washington DC was the US's deadliest aviation disaster since 2001, as all 67 people involved in the crash having died.
That was the start of a spate of high-profile accidents, and the aviation industry has been under a microscope.
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The recent close call involved a Delta Air Lines plane which had just take off from Minneapolis-Saint Paul, in Minnesota, when alarms went off in the cockpit which revealed an aircraft had just flown dangerously close to the commercial airline.
Horrifying audio transcription at the time revealed exactly what was said moments after the incident.
LiveATC.net, an air traffic control chatter, captured the pilot asking: "Was there an actual aircraft about 500 feet below us?"
To which an air traffic controller replied: "Affirmative."
The jet travelled passed the Delta plane, which took off just minutes prior to the incident, at speeds in excess of 350mph, according to FlightRadar 24, while the Federal Aviation Administration detailed how it had been deployed for a flyover at Arlington National Cemetery.
Taking to Twitter, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar posted: "Unbelievably dangerous and thank God people are safe.
"My first call to Department of Defense tomorrow: why are your planes flying 500 feet below passenger jets full of Minnesotans headed from DCA to my state."
While the FAA issued the following statement on Friday (March 28): "The Delta aircraft received an onboard alert that another aircraft was nearby. Air traffic controllers issued corrective instructions to both aircraft."
According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), there have been 153 US civil aviation accidents already this year - 23 of which involved a fatality.
Two days after the fatal crash in the US capital, a medical jet that crashed in Philadelphia, killing all six people onboard.
Six days later (February 6), a plane with 10 people onboard went missing over Alaska, with the wreckage later discovered and all passengers confirmed dead.
While in Arizona on February 10, a private plane owned by Vince Neil crashed into another plane at Scottsdale Airport, Arizona, as it was arriving from Austin, Texas. Neil was not on board.
One week later (February 17), 80 people onboard a Delta Air Lines flight that crashed and flipped upside down in Toronto were safely evacuated.