Two airplanes had a terrifying near miss after almost colliding with each other in the stormy skies above Portland International Airport last week. The close call came when an Alaska Airlines flight tried landing on a runway next to where a SkyWest plane was taking off on Monday, The Independent reported. A YouTube video by the channel VASAAviation caught the terrifying moment and shared a visual simulation of the Alaska flight heading towards the SkyWest plane over the Portland airport during a storm.
The two planes allegedly came within approximately 250 vertical feet of each other, the outlet reported. Notably, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a near-midair collision occurs when planes are less than 500 feet from each other.
The FAA, which is now investigating the incident, said that the pilot of the Alaska Airlines plane was going to land, but initiated a go-around when it almost collided with the Skywest flight.
"While attempting to land at Portland International Airport, the pilot of Alaska Airlines Flight 1299 initiated a go-around due to wind and turned towards SkyWest Airlines Flight 3978, which had just departed," the FAA said in a statement, adding, "An air traffic controller instructed the Alaska Airlines pilot to turn away from the SkyWest aircraft."
In the clip released by the YouTube channel, the audio from the person in air traffic control became panicked as it tried to warn the Alaksa flight to change direction when it became dangerously close to the other plane mid-air.
The controller told the Alaska flight to follow the "runway heading" path, while the Skywest flight was told to turn right as it left the runway. The seemingly confused pilot on the Alaska flight then repeated the instructions meant for the other flight and started to turn right into the path of the plane that had just taken off.
At this point, the air traffic controller appeared to grow flustered and give increasingly frantic directions. He even misidentified the Alaskan flight as "1298". Ultimately, the Alaska flight was reportedly rerouted to an airport 150 miles away and wasn't able to land in Portland.
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Both airlines released statements downplaying the incident. According to The New York Post, Alaska Airlines believes a safe level of separation was maintained. "The crew of Flight 1299 followed cockpit indications and reacted immediately to increase separation from the other aircraft," an Alaska spokesperson said, adding, "The aircraft maintained a safe amount of lateral separation throughout the entire event".
Separately, SkyWest also stated that "at no point was the safety of the flight compromised".
It is not known how many people were aboard the two aircraft. The FAA has said they are still investigating how close in proximity the two airplanes had got to each other.
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