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Delta regional pilot makes 'aggressive maneuver' to avoid B-52 collision

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A Delta regional jet on approach to Minot, North Dakota, made an "aggressive maneuver" to avoid a mid-air collision with a B-52 bomber, according to the Delta pilot. Once on the ground, the pilot apologized to passengers for the abrupt move and explained the situation. (abcnews.go.com) More...

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dilkie
dilkie 15
regardless of the "what about" comments here, the pilot should have been informed of traffic in the area. Can't blame him for responding aggressively for this unexpected situation.
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n9909e
Gary Smith 5
Minot is "VFR only"? That's gonna be a surprise to anyone doing IFR arrival procedures.
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TiredTom
Tom Bruce 3
many towers serving airlines are VFR only... "field in sight"..."contact the tower".
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GraemeSmith
GraemeSmith 1
Yeah - which of the 10 approaches do you think will be the biggest surprise? :-)
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WhiteKnight77
WhiteKnight77 9
Until the height of the bomber is known, it is hard to say if a crash would have happened.
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TimDyck
Tim Dyck 3
I doubt the pilot would have flown that aggressively if his aircraft and passengers were not in danger.
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renb
Ren Babcock 11
Why not say Delta pilot? Does the "Regional" moniker make them less of a pilot and this a more impressive feat? All the captains have at least 1000 hrs at the airline and have a whole lot more takeoffs and landings than any of the legacy pilots and in a lot of cases operate less sophisticated aircraft.
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ewrcap
ewrcap 12
Because they are not Delta pilots. Delta does not hire, pay or train them nor are they on the Delta certificate.I do agree that they are in no way inferior to same.
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Elephant1066
Jorge Diaz 2
A happy ending all around. Tower personnel dropped the ball…
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raphillips5
Richard Phillips 1
These incidents seem to be occurring way too often. Close calls, fire in the wheel well, etc.
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JamesWhitaker
James Whitaker 1
I'm fairly ignorant about this situation, so forgive me for asking why a commercial scheduled flight is working into an airport operating under "VFR rules" only?
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WhiteKnight77
WhiteKnight77 1
The tower operates visually as there is no radar at said airport.
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GreggB57
Gregg Bender 1
Unless the Air Force releases a statement, we may never know. I understand there's no ADS-B info available for the B-52. Is that correct?
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jkeifer3
Joe Keifer 1
If this played out as raw video on a radar's PPI, any "green between" would be acceptable separation.
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LFQQ
fmj bld 1
No TCAS in the B52 ?
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ktnxpi
Rich Pelkowski 1
The Delta pilot's verbose explanation makes me a bit suspect. Sounds as though he is attempting to justify his actions. Hope to obtain additional factual information regarding both flight paths.
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WhiteKnight77
WhiteKnight77 7
I started looking into this. The Skywest pilot started his turn at about 3.5 nautical miles from the touchdown zone on the runway at 2600' MSL at 182 MPH. Minot is roughly 1657'. At his lowest, he was at 2200' MSL 1 3/4 nautical miles southeast from the touchdown zone at 184 MPH (per tracking from FlightAware here).

Without knowing what altitude the bomber was at makes it difficult to state whether or not they would have collided. A 3 degree glide slope would have brought the Skywest jet under the bomber if the bomber was at 1000' AGL. The flight path of the bomber was approximately 1.5 nautical miles from the touchdown zone of the runway.

Still, tower should have warned both aircraft of other traffic, especially since tower control had been handed the bomber for its flyover from Minot approach. Too many people are of the belief that Minot approach should have warned the bomber after it handed the bomber off.
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jac123
j f joseph -2
Yeah right....
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