{"id":94832,"date":"2025-07-26T19:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94832\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T19:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:24:12","slug":"shocking-plunge-by-southwest-flight-departing-l-a-was-to-avoid-another-aircraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94832\/","title":{"rendered":"Shocking plunge by Southwest flight departing L.A. was to avoid another aircraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS<\/strong> \u2013 Passengers aboard a Southwest Airline jet that took a dramatic plunge to avoid<\/a> an oncoming aircraft were told by the pilot that they nearly struck another plane before landing safely in Las Vegas. <\/p>\n

The Boeing 737 jet dropped hundreds of feet in a little over 30 seconds during a flight on Friday, according to a flight tracking website.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Burdi, who was on the flight, said it took a short plunge and then a more drastic drop as passengers screamed in terror.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really thought we were plummeting to a plane crash,\u201d Burdi told Fox News Digital in an interview at the Las Vegas airport. She said the pilot told passengers they had nearly collided with another plane.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration said the flight, Southwest 1496, was responding to an on board alert about another aircraft in its vicinity. The FAA is investigating. Southwest said the crew responded to two alerts that required the pilot to climb then descend. The flight left Hollywood Burbank Airport just before noon.<\/p>\n

Another passenger, comedian Stef Zamorano, said she saw a woman who wasn\u2019t wearing her seat belt shoot up and out of her seat, and a man next to her was clutching her arm. A woman across the aisle was panicking, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was pretty much verbalizing how we all felt, saying, \u2018I want to get off this plane. I want to be on the ground’,\u201d Zamorano told The Associated Press on Friday. Another woman was panicking and saying she wanted \u201cto get off this plane.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plane was in the same airspace near Burbank as a Hawker Hunter Mk. 58, according to the flight tracking site, FlightAware. Records show it is owned by Hawker Hunter Aviation, a British defense contracting company. <\/p>\n

The company didn\u2019t respond to messages on Friday and Saturday seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Southwest said the flight continued to Las Vegas, \u201cwhere it landed uneventfully.\u201d The airline said that it is working with the FAA \u201cto further understand the circumstances\u201d of the event.<\/p>\n

This close call is just the latest incident to raise questions about aviation safety<\/a> in the wake of January\u2019s midair collision<\/a> over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 Passengers aboard a Southwest Airline jet that took a dramatic plunge to avoid an oncoming…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":94833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,62533,276,2961,224,5337,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-94832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-caitlin-burdi","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-u-s-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114921175005211800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}