SkyWest Airlines says it’s investigating a near collision between one of its E175s with an Air Force B-52 that prompted one of the regional jet’s pilots to take “aggressive” evasive action at Minot Airport in North Dakota. The E175, flying for Delta Connection, was on final on a flight from Minneapolis Friday evening when pilots saw they were on a converging course with the giant nuclear bomber. “I don’t know how fast they were going but they were going a lot faster than us. I felt it was the safest thing to turn behind them,” he told passengers after the encounter. “Sorry for the aggressive maneuver. It caught me by surprise. It was not normal at all.” The pilot said he doesn’t know why he wasn’t given a “heads up” that the massive Air Force plane was in the pattern. There are dozens of B-52s based at nearby Minot Air Force Base, about 13 miles north of the civilian airport. The pilot got on the PA system after they were on the ground to explain the abrupt turn to the passengers.
To a round of applause from the passengers, the somewhat rattled-sounding pilot thanked them for their understanding and described how he was told by a tower controller to turn in the direction of a converging airplane. Before he could turn away from that plane, as further directed by the tower, he decided to hit the throttles to climb and turn sharply to pass behind the bomber. He also explained the civilian tower at Minot doesn’t have radar and everything is done visually, but he did note that the Air Force base does have radar and did not tell the regional crew that the B-52 was in the pattern. “It was not a fun day at work,” he said.
The airline confirmed the incident in a statement to AVweb. “SkyWest flight 3788, operating as Delta Connection from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Minot, North Dakota on July 18, landed safely in Minot after being cleared for approach by the tower but performed a go-around when another aircraft became visible in their flight path. We are investigating the incident.”
Delta Pilot Debriefs Cabin After Near Mid Air Collision
byu/Fair_Eye1255 inaviation
Back when I started flying, at a non-radar airport this would be a day ending in Y. Now with ADS-B, TCAS, and Brite this should not be happening!
Military aircraft are not required to run with collision evidence systems turned on. That is if it is even installed.
Kudos to crew for taking action.
Minot doesn’t have radar??? That’s news to me! I Wonder what the pilot was referring to.
RtrdCtrl:
I hope it has ‘skin paint’ (real) radar, not just ‘Secondary Surveillance Radar’ which depends on each aircraft having transponder turned on - which the B-52 is reported as turning off at low altitude.
“Giant nuclear bomber”, “Massive Air Force plane”
The B-52 Stratofortress is a beast in its own right, but when you stack it up against commercial airliners like the Boeing 747, the differences are striking—especially in length, height, and overall mass.
B-52 versus B-747
Length 160.9 ft 231.6 ft
Wingspan 185.1 ft 211.5 ft
Height 40.7 ft 63.5 ft
Max Takeoff Weight 488,000 lbs (B-52) 875,000 lbs (B-747)
This story is a bit hard to believe. I suspect we’re not hearing the whole story.
If I had to take a guess, the B-52 was playing “stealth bomber” and had the transponder and ADS-B off. It seems hard to sneak up on someone with that stuff on.
I hate sounding like the “get off my porch” guy, but back in the day before all the tech a visual tower made sure no one hit anyone on the runway itself, but out in the pattern they were trying to keep things organized but no guaranty, one guy looking out the window a couple miles away wasn’t going to keep everyone separated.
Locally the A-10s from KMTN used to sort of fly the pattern in a very loose 4-ship at my local airport but not be up on VHF comms. I thought it was annoying and dangerous, especially when they were painted green flying above green fields and green trees.
this sound like the old adage.." piloting in 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror!"
THIS!!!
If you spend enough time in the Class B, you’ll get used to the tower having radar. They do not all have it and as we saw at DCA, even in the Class B they’ll give visual clearances too.