Pilot narrowly avoids 'midair collision' with US Air Force plane near Venezuela
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
1. The civilian planes fly on pre published routes and communicate with air traffic controllers in plain text
1. Any covert military operation has access to these plans
1. I understand that there may be reasons why military planes might want to fly undetected but given they know where the civilian planes are and where they are flying, it should be trivial for the military ships and planes to avoid those areas.
That's called a flight plan. It's just a declaration of intent, so that the ATCs know that you're expected. There are many valid reasons for deviating from the flight plan. For example, technical difficulties, bad weather, last minute diversions etc. That makes it very unreliable to predict the aircraft's location. You have to rely on your radar instead. The Military has some of the best radars around - especially on AEW&CS aircrafts and ships that stay close to conflict zones at all times.
> 1. I understand that there may be reasons why military planes might want to fly undetected but given they know where the civilian planes are and where they are flying, it should be trivial for the military ships and planes to avoid those areas.
Did you know that the Ronald Reagan Intl airport (DCA) saw one 'close call' between a civilian airliner and a military helicopter every month for the 13 year period from 2011 to 2024? [1]. That's close to 150 near disasters in total, for consecutive months for more than a decade! This is ridiculous!
Clearly, it's not a question if they can stay clear to avoid an incident. It's a question of if anyone cares at all.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/03/11/nx-s1-5324543/ntsb-dca-mid-ai...
The military plane was running silent.
With transponders on, both aircraft (via TCAS) and the air traffic controllers are able to pay attention and avoid the situation, so much better chance of catching.
This does seem insane from a civilian perspective, but I'm curious to know the military side of it. Is this totally normal and not something they worry about, or is this as crazy as it seems for everyone involved?
When on an IFR flight plan - at least domestically, especially in busy airspaces, the flight plan is mainly sort of a backup in case of lost-comms. You are typically vectored by ATC and your route may or may not be exactly what you filed. For example, in the SoCal area, the "standard" IFR routes can be pretty roundabout going around the approach/departure corridors of the main airports. But, if at any time the area is clear, ATC would typically clear you through a shorter routing.
I am not sure how it works for international routes. I know that for trans-oceanic routing, they typically make position reports over HF radio when over the ocean where there is no ADSB coverage.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/JBU1112/history/2025...
You can see the rate of climb change from 2000 feet per minuteto 220 feet per minute before resuming.
That aside, comparisons with 'even' Iran or Israel is not very meaningful for US these days. Granted, both committed some very serious atrocities. But I don't remember Israel just arbitrarily blowing up every flotilla headed for Palestine. Meanwhile, the US administration treats small boats off the Venezuelan coast like targets of a duck hunt or something. The way they joke about it on TV is sickening, to say the least.
Even if you take civilian aviation activities, the US standards are a rather low bar these days. For example, when you launch a space vehicle, you usually notify via NOTAM, the entire region where it might fall in case of a failure or destruct. But how many times has Starship fallen outside the notified area? We even have videos of flaming streaming wreckage, taken from commercial airliners. That's absolutely insane, if you ask me! Have you seen how ridiculously tiny the notified area was? That too for a vehicle that had never worked properly before that. It's a display of pure hubris and lack of concern.
And then you have the jaw dropping revelation that there was nearly one near-collision between a military aircraft and a commercial civilian airliner over the Potomac near DCA every month for 13 years, till a pair finally collided killing 67 innocent people. I mean, who is taking all these unbelievable decisions? I thought each near-miss is supposed to be treated as seriously as a full crash. Do you need 2 such incidents, much less ~150 before your alarm bells go off? And when it inevitably fails, you see the culprits running for a scapegoat, like what Boeing tried to do with the pilots of the crashed 737 Max-8 aircrafts.
Clearly, somebody is not getting the message here. All concerns about human lives have gone out the window. How many more?
Just because they were filled with Westerners. They didn't have any trouble with bombing refugee camps and apartment blocks full with Palestinians.
I know that some here absolutely hate any suggestions that the US military is capable of any evil. But you're getting very sanitized news. Even otherwise, they have already murdered 80+ Venezuelan civilians in international waters and we don't even know if they were actually guilty of drug trafficking, since those were extra-judicial executions. And at least two of them were murdered in a double tap attack, which is an international war crime, regardless.
[1] It was Curaçao to be precise, but it's still oddly close to Venezuela.
Which is precisely why they should avoid flying INTO civilian aircraft.
Imagine if that refueler had stayed away from the JetBlue, we wouldn't be talking about it ;-)
Because FAA regulations literally do not apply to military aircraft. FAA regulates civilian aviation.