Near-collision between B-52 and SkyWest jet was caught on camera

[Eugene]

Source: NBC News

Near-collision between B-52 and SkyWest jet was caught on camera

Thousands attending the North Dakota State Fair were on the ground as the drama was unfolding in the sky.

July 21, 2025, 5:20 PM EDT
By Janhvi Bhojwani, Jay Blackman and Corky Siemaszko

A concertgoer at the North Dakota State Fair recorded footage of a B-52 bomber and a SkyWest jet on a collision course, but he didn't realize he was watching a potential disaster unfolding before his very eyes.

Josh Kadrmas said he was in the crowd on the opening day of the annual fair Friday waiting for the B-52 flyover when he aimed his cellphone at the sky.

“We could see the exhaust from the B-52 far to the east, so I started recording as it was announced to the crowd the B-52 was going to fly over the grandstand," he told NBC News.

What Kadrmas also wound up catching was faint footage of Delta Flight 3788, which is operated by SkyWest, heading into the same airspace as the bomber.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/collision-b-52-skywest-jet-was-caught-camera-rcna220020

[UpInArms]

1. A private contractor?

The FAA stressed the air traffic controllers manning the tower at Minot International Airport work for a commercial contractor.

"These controllers are not FAA employees," the agency said in a statement.

While nobody was hurt, the near collision happened six months after a military helicopter hit a passenger plane near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, killing 67 people.

wtf?

Is this more from the purge of employees by DOGE?

[Ocelot II]

3. There have been private ATC towers for years.

When traffic at a particular airport drops below a certain level but they want to maintain a tower, the airport might contract with a private company. However, the controllers still have to have been trained by the FAA and follow FAA rules and standards. FAA still has oversight over private towers. When I was a flight instructor in the '90s, the tower controllers at the airport I was working at asked us to do more landing practice at that airport rather than at outlying uncontrolled airports, because each takeoff or landing counted as an "operation" for purposes of traffic, to keep ATC from going private. FAA controllers were paid better and had better benefits than if they worked for a private operator.

[cos dem]

4. Private controllers have been a thing for awhile at smaller airports

It's part of the overall "privatization" BS that republicans like to promote as somehow being "better". But you see how they use it, "see, these are private contractors. Don't complain to us, complain to a nameless, faceless corporation."

[markodochartaigh]

2. From the article:

"The FAA stressed the air traffic controllers manning the tower at Minot International Airport work for a commercial contractor.

"These controllers are not FAA employees," the agency said in a statement."

Maybe that's the problem. They are providing a public service which should be provided by the FAA with union employees at a properly staffed level, but they are using employees from a private contractor whose main goal is profit, not public safety.

[Ocelot II]

5. See #3. FAA maintains oversight over private towers

even if they don't employ the controllers. They can't pretend they have nothing to do with them.

[LisaM]

6. I absolutely detest flyovers. They are just a blatant ad for the military.

I hate them at football games and baseball games, and now, I guess, at state fairs.

We need to ban them; they serve no purpose and I don't know why anyone likes them anyway.