{"id":348920,"date":"2025-12-14T21:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348920\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T21:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:41:07","slug":"jetblue-flight-near-venezuela-avoids-midair-collision-with-us-air-force-tanker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348920\/","title":{"rendered":"JetBlue flight near Venezuela avoids &#8216;midair collision&#8217; with US Air Force tanker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">WASHINGTON &#8212; A JetBlue flight from the small Caribbean nation of Cura\u00e7ao halted its ascent to avoid colliding with a U.S. Air Force refueling tanker on Friday, and the pilot blamed the military plane for crossing his path. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWe almost had a midair collision up here,\u201d the JetBlue pilot said, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic control. \u201cThey passed directly in our flight path. &#8230; They don\u2019t have their transponder turned on, it\u2019s outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The incident involved JetBlue Flight 1112 from Cura\u00e7ao, which is just off the coast of Venezuela, en route to New York City&#8217;s JFK airport. It comes as the U.S. military has stepped up its drug interdiction activities in the Caribbean and is also seeking to <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/venezuela-us-military-trump-fa18-fighter-jets-06fd7cdc5ac26e7a46165431b95508b0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">increase pressure<\/a> on Venezuela&#8217;s government. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWe just had traffic pass directly in front of us within 5 miles of us \u2014 maybe 2 or 3 miles \u2014 but it was an air-to air-refueler from the United States Air Force and he was at our altitude,\u201d the pilot said. \u201cWe had to stop our climb.\u201d The pilot said the Air Force plane then headed into Venezuelan air space.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Derek Dombrowski, a spokesman for JetBlue, said Sunday: \u201cWe have reported this incident to federal authorities and will participate in any investigation.&#8221; He added, \u201cOur crewmembers are trained on proper procedures for various flight situations, and we appreciate our crew for promptly reporting this situation to our leadership team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Pentagon referred The Associated Press to the Air Force for comment. The Air Force didn&#8217;t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Associated Press writer Ben Finley contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON &#8212; A JetBlue flight from the small Caribbean nation of Cura\u00e7ao halted its ascent to avoid colliding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[174010,9178,23,966,793,1576,3,111,795,21,19,22,20,25,24,965],"class_list":["post-348920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-174010","tag-aerospace-and-defense-industry","tag-america","tag-article","tag-general-news","tag-military-and-defense","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}