Air Force Tanker Nearly Collides With JetBlue Flight While Patrolling Venezuela

AP Photo/Hiro Komae

A U.S. Air Force refueling tanker failed to communicate its position when passing in front of a commercial flight on Friday, narrowly avoiding a collision.

JetBlue Flight 1112 was traveling to New York from the Caribbean island of Curaçao, about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Radio transmissions show that barely 20 minutes into the flight, the pilot was forced to halt his trajectory to dodge the tanker – located less than 20 seconds away at the flight’s flying speed.

“They don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous,” the pilot said at the time to air traffic controllers. “We almost had a midair collision up here.”

Air traffic control communicated to the JetBlue pilot that they were also not able to see the tanker on radar, telling him that the unidentified military aircraft was not the first.

“They’ve been outrageous with the unidentified aircraft within our airspace,” a controller told the pilot.

It remains unclear where the tanker was heading at the time, though the commercial pilot told controllers that it had been flying northeast, toward Venezuelan airspace.

A spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, Col. Manny Ortiz, said the military was “aware of the recent reporting regarding U.S. military aircraft operations in the Caribbean and are currently reviewing the matter.”

“Safety remains a top priority, and we are working through the appropriate channels to assess the facts surrounding the situation,” he said.

Curaçao air traffic control told at least three other pilots the following night to be aware of unidentified aircraft in the airspace.

“We have reported this incident to federal authorities and will participate in any investigation,” JetBlue spokesman Derek Dombrowski told The New York Times.

The presence of the U.S. military in the area dramatically increased in recent weeks due to President Donald Trump’s continued pressure campaign against Venezuela and his efforts to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power.

Last week, American military personnel seized a sanctioned Venezuelan oil tanker, a move Maduro’s government characterized as an “act of piracy.”

Trump later told reporters that the tanker was seized “for a very good reason” and that the U.S. intended to keep it.

In response, Maduro told supporters at a rally last week that he intends to “smash the teeth of the North American empire.”

The Trump administration has directed a massive buildup of weapons and units into the Caribbean, along with repeated U.S. strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the area.

Those strikes have so far left more than 80 people dead and created a growing scandal around the “double-tap” killing of those who survived initial strikes.