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For Pete's Sake! Military jet with transponder off nearly takes out Jet Blue flight over Caribbean
A Jetblue Airbus A320-200, registration N809JB performing flight B6-1112 from Curacao (Curacao) to New York JFK,NY (USA), was climbing through about FL333 out of Curacao cleared to climb FL350 when the crew spotted a military tanker, the transponder of which was not transmitting, ahead of them in close proximity crossing their flight path, obviously on its way into Venezuelean Airspace. Tthe A320 flight crew subsequently reported to ATC, that they had a military aircraft, a USA tanker aircraft without having its transponder on, crossing into their flight path at about the same altitude about 2-3nm ahead of them, they had to stop their climb, it was outragerous, the crew provided the approximate position to ATC. ATC confirmed they did not have that aircraft on their radar, later adding that aircraft was at FL340. The A320 crew advised they would be reporting the occurrence, they rated it a near midair collision. The A320 continued their climb normally and landed safely in New York about 4 hours later.
Air Traffic Control in Curacao confirmed, that the military aircraft was not visible on their radar.
The occurrence was also reported to the FAA by the Jetblue crew and is being investigated.
Question: The tanker was reported to be "invisible" on radar, but after the near miss Curacao Air Traffic Control advises that the tanker's altitude was FL340 (34,000 ft.) How did Curacao have that information but apparently nothing else?
not theoretical for me. was on a noon commuter flight to tuscon almost obliterated by an airforce jet from a runway just 2 miles away. alarms clanged, and the pilot was so shook he did a pointless circle that lasted longer than the airtime from phx. passengers never told anything, and was unable to find anything reported online.
I would think it would still be visible on radar just not broadcasting its ID but I don't know how it really works. I don't think a tanker has that much stealth technology built in but maybe it does.
It would depend upon how the radar was configured at the time. Generally, ATC (Air Traffic Control) low altitude sectors use both direct and transponder returns, high altitude sectors use just transponder returns. At least that was the setup back in FAA Air Route Traffic Control Centers in the late 60s. Things may be different now, and the Curacao ATC may be entirely different.
Even if Curacao did enable direct returns, there would have been no altitude information available, as that's transmitted by the transponder. So how was Curacao ATC able to report that the tanker altitude was at FL 440?
Unmentioned in the reports so far is the question of whether or not the tanker was in radio contact with Curacao ATC. If so, Curacao would have known that the tanker was somewhere in the area, and surely would have asked the tanker to report altitude. If that was the case, why wouldn't Curacao have advised JetBlue before departure... that would be standard procedure.
A lot of questions need to be resolved on this one.
Comments
Question: The tanker was reported to be "invisible" on radar, but after the near miss Curacao Air Traffic Control advises that the tanker's altitude was FL340 (34,000 ft.) How did Curacao have that information but apparently nothing else?
not theoretical for me.
was on a noon commuter flight to tuscon almost obliterated by an airforce jet from a runway just 2 miles away. alarms clanged, and the pilot was so shook he did a pointless circle that lasted longer than the airtime from phx.
passengers never told anything, and was unable to find anything reported online.
and this was during trump 1.0.
Even if Curacao did enable direct returns, there would have been no altitude information available, as that's transmitted by the transponder. So how was Curacao ATC able to report that the tanker altitude was at FL 440?
Unmentioned in the reports so far is the question of whether or not the tanker was in radio contact with Curacao ATC. If so, Curacao would have known that the tanker was somewhere in the area, and surely would have asked the tanker to report altitude. If that was the case, why wouldn't Curacao have advised JetBlue before departure... that would be standard procedure.
A lot of questions need to be resolved on this one.