The pilot of a JetBlue flight reported on Friday that he narrowly avoided colliding with a U.S. military aircraft over the Caribbean after an Air Force refueling tanker passed in front of the commercial plane without broadcasting its position, according to air traffic control radio communications.
“They don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous,” the JetBlue pilot told an air traffic controller, after identifying the type of plane he had encountered. “We almost had a midair collision up here.”
The radio transmissions detail the experience of JetBlue Flight 1112, bound for New York after leaving Curaçao, a small island in the southern Caribbean about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Twenty minutes after takeoff, the aircraft suddenly leveled off midclimb, according to flight tracking data. On the radio, the JetBlue pilot said he was forced to stop the plane’s ascent to its cruising altitude to avoid a collision with the tanker.
It’s unclear whether the pilot saw the military aircraft with his own eyes or if he was alerted by a sensor on the aircraft. He told the air traffic controller in Curaçao that the tanker was only two or three miles away — less than 20 seconds flying time at its speed.
The air traffic controller said he couldn’t see the tanker on his radar screen either, but suggested the unknown military aircraft was part of a trend. “There’s been outrageous unidentified aircraft within our airspace,” the controller told the pilot.
Just a day later, on Saturday night, air traffic controllers in Curaçao told at least three other pilots, including those for American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, to be aware of unidentified aircraft in their vicinity, an apparent reference to other planes flying without their transponders on. The recordings were posted on LiveATC.net, a website that publishes radio feeds from air traffic control towers around the world, and on social media by radio hobbyists.
The skies over the Caribbean have become increasingly crowded in recent weeks, as the U.S. military has sent more aircraft and equipment to the region as part of the military buildup against Venezuela. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, military aircraft are flying missions from Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic and the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier deployed to the region.
Derek Dombrowski, a JetBlue spokesman, told The Times, “We have reported this incident to federal authorities and will participate in any investigation.” Flight tracking data shows the JetBlue plane resumed its climb a few minutes after the incident and landed in New York City without further issues.
Col. Manny Ortiz, a spokesman for the military’s Southern Command, said they were “aware of the recent reporting regarding U.S. military aircraft operations in the Caribbean and are currently reviewing the matter.” He added, “Safety remains a top priority, and we are working through the appropriate channels to assess the facts surrounding the situation.”
It is impossible to know with certainty where the tanker was flying, since it was not reporting its position. But the JetBlue pilot told the controller that the tanker was flying northeast, toward airspace managed by Venezuela.
Last weekend, additional Air Force tankers — large jets that can refuel other aircraft in flight — arrived in the Dominican Republic as part of an agreement that allowed the U.S. to use the country’s territory to fight drug trafficking. Since early September, the U.S. has conducted a series of airstrikes on boats they say are carrying narcotics, killing over 80 people. A wide range of experts have called these strikes illegal, which the U.S. government rejects.
In November, Curaçao’s Civil Aviation Authority issued an alert asking pilots to “exercise extreme caution” when flying to or from the country, which is within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The message said that pilots and radar had frequently reported “nonidentified aircraft” flying in the country’s airspace. It’s unclear if these unidentified aircraft all belong to the U.S. military, but Friday’s near collision happened in the region covered by the alert.
The tanker’s mission was also unclear; flight tracking data shows several other U.S. military aircraft were also flying in the area, publicly reporting their positions, in the hours before the near collision. It’s possible the tanker was refueling these aircraft, but the military did not respond to questions about why the tanker was not visible and the other aircraft were.
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Riley Mellen is a reporter on The Times’s Visual Investigations team, which combines traditional reporting with advanced digital forensics.
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