Shocking plunge by Southwest flight departing L.A. was to avoid another aircraft
The Boeing 737 jet dropped hundreds of feet in a little over 30 seconds during a flight on Friday, according to a flight tracking website.
Caitlin Burdi, who was on the flight, said it took a short plunge and then a more drastic drop as passengers screamed in terror.
'We really thought we were plummeting to a plane crash,' Burdi told Fox News Digital in an interview at the Las Vegas airport. She said the pilot told passengers they had nearly collided with another plane.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the flight, Southwest 1496, was responding to an on board alert about another aircraft in its vicinity. The FAA is investigating. Southwest said the crew responded to two alerts that required the pilot to climb then descend. The flight left Hollywood Burbank Airport just before noon.
Another passenger, comedian Stef Zamorano, said she saw a woman who wasn't wearing her seat belt shoot up and out of her seat, and a man next to her was clutching her arm. A woman across the aisle was panicking, she said.
'She was pretty much verbalizing how we all felt, saying, 'I want to get off this plane. I want to be on the ground',' Zamorano told The Associated Press on Friday. Another woman was panicking and saying she wanted 'to get off this plane.'
The plane was in the same airspace near Burbank as a Hawker Hunter Mk. 58, according to the flight tracking site, FlightAware. Records show it is owned by Hawker Hunter Aviation, a British defense contracting company.
The company didn't respond to messages on Friday and Saturday seeking comment.
Southwest said the flight continued to Las Vegas, 'where it landed uneventfully.' The airline said that it is working with the FAA 'to further understand the circumstances' of the event.
This close call is just the latest incident to raise questions about aviation safety in the wake of January's midair collision over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Last conversation between Army helicopter pilot and instructor revealed before fatal American Airlines crash
New details have been disclosed about the final moments before an Army helicopter collided in mid-air with an American Airlines passenger jet in January over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Thousands of pages of records have been released publicly as part of the government's ongoing investigation into the crash, which resulted in 67 deaths. The information raises further questions about whether the crew of the Black Hawk helicopter was aware of its actual altitude and whether it was on a collision course with the Bombardier CRJ700 jet. Included in the newly released records are the final words spoken by two members of the Army helicopter crew, Capt. Rebecca Lobach and her instructor, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves. The National Transportation Safety Board started a three-day hearing on Wednesday (July 30) about the January 29 crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. There were emotional moments as family members of the victims broke down upon hearing some of the details. All 64 people on American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, were killed along with the three crew members on the military aircraft. Culpability for the accident remains unclear, with questions about whether the collision was due to a mistake by the helicopter crew or if other factors contributed to the incident. Air traffic controllers have also come under scrutiny for their decisions amid reports of staffing issues at Reagan National Airport that day. Helicopters have long flown near the airport, which is known for its notorious congestion. An 11-minute presentation and animation by the NTSB illustrated the circumstances that led to the crash and confirmed details already released by the authorities. The American Airlines pilots were instructed to switch runways approximately five minutes before landing, which they did. Reagan has three runways, the longest (the busiest in the nation) runs parallel to the river, with two shorter runways intersecting it at angles. The pilots were instructed to realign with the northern of the two shorter strips. Meanwhile, the helicopter was flying back to Fort Belvoir in Virginia as part of a night evaluation of Capt. Lobach under the instruction of Eaves. Staff Sgt. Ryan O'Hara was also on board. According to the NTSB presentation, the route down the river on which the helicopter was flying has a maximum altitude of 200 feet near the airport. However, the aircraft continued to fly above that level, reaching heights of more than 300 feet. Officials stated that the crew appeared to believe they were much lower than that, at times claiming they were about 100 feet below their actual altitude. One reason could be because of an error with their altimeter. About three minutes before the crash, Eaves told Lobach to 'come down for me' and fly at 200 feet because they were at 300 feet, the presentation revealed. Two minutes before the crash, an air traffic controller warned them about the approaching passenger plane. Another warning followed 90 seconds later. Both times, the helicopter crew confirmed they could see the plane. They requested 'visual separation,' allowing them to navigate around the incoming flight. The second time, the controller instructed the helicopter to pass behind the passenger plane, but the helicopter crew had keyed its microphone — pushed the button to talk — at the same time as the controller and never heard the instruction, according to the flight recorder. Twenty seconds before the crash, Eaves told Lobach: 'Alright, kinda come left for me ma'am, I think that's why he's asking.' She replied: 'Sure.' Eaves said: 'We're kinda out towards the middle.' Lobach responded: 'Okay fine.' The Black Hawk was at 270 feet above the river, and the American Airlines plane continued its landing approach, passing through 320 feet in altitude. They collided at 8:48 p.m. in a fiery explosion, shown in newly released security camera footage. Investigators stated in the hearing that the helicopter crew had no prior knowledge of the impending crash. In the cockpit of the American Airlines jet, the pilots used expletives and tried to pull the plane up in the seconds before. Part of the investigation focused on testing the helicopter altimeter, a report on which indicated potential discrepancies between the barometric altitude and the radio altitude. A test flight over the Potomac revealed that the barometric altitude was consistently about 100 feet lower than the radio and geometric altitudes over the water. Additionally, the barometric altimeter was obscured during the helicopter flight. To address this, Senator Ted Cruz has introduced legislation called 'The Rotor Act,' which requires all aircraft to transmit their location to other aircraft and air traffic controllers — a system known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B). This is currently only required on aircraft that fly above 18,000 feet, though some aircraft, including those operated by the military, are exempt from ADS-B for security reasons. The NTSB recommended that the FAA require ADS-B on all aircraft as long ago as 2008. 'The mistake was that this was not unforeseen. We had 84 near misses in the three years before in the D.C. airspace, and no one did anything,' Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters. 'Someone was asleep at the wheel. Someone should have seen that.' The three-day hearing will also include an examination of FAA oversight of Washington airspace.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Adorable disabled twin brothers aged just four both die trapped in horrific house blaze
Two adorable disabled twin brothers have been tragically killed after becoming trapped inside a horrific house fire in Tennessee. Four-year-old Lathan and Langston McDaniel died on July 28 when flames tore through their Nashville home. The fire started on an outdoor patio before spreading rapidly to the rest of the house, according to the Nashville Fire Department. There were intense flames and smoke already reaching the roof when firefighters arrived. The mother, Jessica McDaniel, and her three children were inside when the fire broke out. She managed to escape the home with her youngest daughter, Lexi Rose, but was unable to reach her sons who were still upstairs. It's unclear at this time what caused the fire. The fire department is conducting an investigation that could take weeks. A GoFundMe has been created by a family friend to support the mother and her surviving child. 'I am trying to assist this family in renewing all that they have lost that is possible to replace.' 'We will never be able to get back their beautiful miracle twins, but maybe we can try to help replace all that has been lost.' She said the young victims were 'micro-preemie survivors and had a lot of health challenges' but were 'absolutely the lights of our world.' 'Words cannot express the grief and despair this whole family (and the village it has taken to love and support them well) are currently experiencing.' The campaign has raised just over $12,000 of its $30,000 goal so far. A neighbor, Tiffany Dalton, told WSMV that the community is 'just sad and heartbroken.' 'Me being a mom, I can't imagine what she's going through.' A friend of the family, Lacey Corbitt, told The Tennessean that the boy's mother has been 'broken' ever since the fire. 'They are physically ok,' she told the outlet, referring to the mother and her daughter but 'mentally, she's not ok.' 'It just leaves a huge hole in our hearts that they're gone. But it's amazing to see that the community is willing to help support and help them,'
BBC News
5 hours ago
- BBC News
Helicopter in deadly DC airport collision was flying too high, NTSB says
Investigators have found the Army helicopter involved in a deadly mid-air collision over Washington DC was receiving faulty altitude data, causing it to fly higher than findings, revealed during National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing, indicate that the helicopter's altimeters - devices that tell pilots how high off the ground they are - showed discrepancies ranging from 80ft (24.4m) to 64 passengers onboard an American Airlines flight, along with three crew members on the helicopter, were killed in the 29 January are not expected to identify the cause of the crash at the hearing but will present insights into what led to the tragedy. The first day of the three-day hearing has focused on the military helicopter's altimeter, performance and navigation systems. The hearing opened on Wednesday with a video animation showing the path of the helicopter and airliner just before the of the crash victims attended the hearing, some wearing pictures of their loved ones around their necks or on Lilley, whose son Sam was the plane's first officer, told CBS News, the BBC's US partner, that he hopes the hearing will help him learn more about those final moments."I know that my son saw that helicopter one second before impact, and they tried very hard to avoid it," Mr Lilley said. "Sam was a good pilot, and he would have been trying to fly that aircraft all the way, all the way to the bottom."
