Two Passengers Injured As United Flight Avoids Mid-Air Collision

Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto (Getty Images)

The sky doesn’t seem crowded at a glance, but there are 5,400 planes in FAA-controlled airspace at any given time. A United Airlines flight took an evasive maneuver while approaching San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday, injuring two passengers onboard. The plane stopped its descent at 31,000 feet to avoid dropping into the vicinity of two other commercial aircraft.

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The flight crew of United Flight 2428 received a traffic collision avoidance system resolution advisory from the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center Airspace, CNN reports. Pilots are required to respond immediately because the advisory means there’s a threat of a mid-air collision. The plane was 3,000 feet above a Southwest flight and a SkyWest flight was 1,000 feet below, according to FlightRadar24. The FAA stated, “there was no loss of safe separation.” 

The “fasten seatbelts” sign was turned on when the maneuver was made. However, one passenger wasn’t seated and broke their ankle. The flight crew declared a medical emergency after the incident, stating to air traffic control, “Someone might have broken an ankle and there’s passengers that got hurt when we had an RA.” It’s unclear how the second passenger was injured.

The FAA is investigating the incident, which isn’t just another in a lengthy streak of near-misses. Earlier this month, an Alaska Airlines plane blew out its tires aborting a takeoff because a Southwest flight was inadvertently cleared to cross the same runway.