Collision warning sounds in cockpit of Delta plane due to close call with Air Force jet near Reagan National Airport
A close call between a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 taking off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and a US Air Force T-38 jet, often used by the military for training, sounded alarms in the cockpit of the passenger plane Friday.
Delta 2983 was departing Reagan Airport around 3:15 p.m. and heading to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for a regularly scheduled flight.
Delta did not identify the other jet involved, but a review of tracking data from FlightRadar24 shows an Air Force T-38 jet flying past the Delta plane and DCA airport going more than 350 miles per hour at 800 feet. The military jet took off and landed at Langley Air Force Base, in Hampton, Virginia.
CNN has asked the Air Force for comment.
The close call happened just south of DCA airport, close to the spot where an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided, killing 67 people, on January 29.
At a congressional hearing on Thursday Senators demanded to know why close calls between military helicopters and passenger planes went unchecked for so long at DCA.
The NTSB said investigators uncovered more than 15,000 occurrences for close proximity events between commercial airplanes and helicopters between 2021 and 2024 where aircraft were within one nautical mile and 85 cases where two aircraft were separated by only 1,500 feet vertically and 200 feet laterally.
The FAA has since closed a helicopter route by the airport and Thursday vowed to required military aircraft near DCA to fly with specific collision avoidance equipment turned on.
But that wasn't enough to prevent today's close call as the Delta plane was taking off.
'On that departure … was there an actual aircraft about 500 ft below us as we came off of DCA,' the Delta pilot asked air traffic controllers on audio captured by website LiveATC.net.
'Delta 2983, affirmative,' the Departure controller responds.
The pilot also noted they received a warning in the cockpit, called a 'resolution advisory' from the plane's Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System. The system tells a pilot what to do to avoid a collision.
'Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people,' said Morgan Durrant, a spokesperson for Delta Air Lines. 'That's why the flight crew followed procedures to maneuver the aircraft as instructed.'
Two pilots, three flight attendants and 131 passengers were on board the Delta aircraft.
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