An investigation has been launched after a United Airlines flight carrying 162 passengers and six crew members came within a few hundred feet of a US Army Black Hawk helicopter near John Wayne Airport in southern California. The incident occurred at about 8.40pm on Tuesday when the military helicopter, returning from a training mission, crossed into the path of the descending passenger plane.
Pilots of United flight 589 received a collision avoidance alarm and responded by levelling off the aircraft, halting their descent to prevent a collision. According to data from FlightRadar24, the closest point between the two aircraft was 525ft vertically and 1,422ft laterally. An air traffic controller was heard saying, 'We're going to be addressing that, because that was not good.'
The near miss comes just over a year after an American Airlines jet collided with an Army Black Hawk near Washington DC, killing 67 people in the deadliest US aviation crash in more than two decades. In response to that crash, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) changed policy in March, requiring air traffic controllers to actively use radar to direct helicopters and planes around airports, rather than relying on pilots to see and avoid each other.
The FAA said it would investigate whether the new rule was applied during Tuesday's incident. United confirmed the details, stating that pilots were advised by air traffic control to watch for the helicopter and responded to a traffic alert by levelling the aircraft. A California National Guard spokesperson confirmed the helicopter, based at Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos, was conducting routine training and was at an assigned altitude while in communication with air traffic control.
Two days after the California near miss, an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck on a runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York, killing both pilots. The FAA is also investigating that incident.
