Southwest flight from Burbank drops hundreds of feet to avoid possible collision
A Southwest flight climbing away from Burbank Airport suddenly descended hundreds of feet Friday afternoon, possibly to avoid a mid-air collision.
The drop of around 500 feet came moments after the plane had been gaining altitude steadily since takeoff, causing tense moments on the plane. Passengers said on social media that they were startled by the move.
A military jet was headed southwest to Naval Base Ventura County in Point Mugu and was at a similar altitude — 14,525 feet — when the Southwest flight dropped, per Flightradar24.
The planes were around five miles apart and within 400 vertical feet of one another, headed in opposite directions, when the Southwest flight took evasive action, flight data on the website showed. The fighter jet stopped its own steady descent and maintained its height for several minutes after the incident.
Both flights on flightradar24 are linked in the article. No need to speculate.
The original link didn’t work for me. Found the tail in another link. I’m just a casual FR24 user that clicks planes to see what’s overhead. Didn’t know you could search by tail number. I get a fair amount of military helicopter activity over me but they often are unidentified and not tracked. Something about low altitude I guess.
Though I have seen/heard/tracked a P-8A circling above at 18k for a couple hours, which is spooky as shit at midnight.