New York.– A plane from the American airline JetBlue coming from Curaçao, one of the islands of the Netherlands in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela, stopped its ascent to avoid a “collision” with a refueling tanker of the United States Air Force on Friday, and the pilot blamed the military plane for crossing its path, according to local media reports this Sunday.
“We almost had a mid-air collision,” said the JetBlue pilot, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic control leaked to the media.
According to the pilot, the tanker aircraft crossed the flight path of JetBlue flight 1112 bound for New York’s JFK airport.
“It passed directly in front of us less than five miles (about 8 kilometers), maybe two or three miles; it was a United States Air Force in-flight refueling aircraft. And it was at our altitude. We had to stop our ascent,” the pilot said in the recording.
JetBlue spokesman Derek Dombrowski said he informed “federal authorities” this Sunday.
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Since last summer, the Pentagon has maintained a huge military deployment in Caribbean waters to destroy boats that, according to the Government, transport drugs and belong to networks in which the Venezuelan Executive and Army are involved.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a warning last month to U.S. aircraft, urging them to “exercise extreme caution” when flying over Venezuelan airspace, “due to the worsening security situation and increased military activity in or around Venezuela.”
