After the near miss from JetBlue, there was another near miss with a business jet yesterday morning: <a href="https://nos.nl/l/2594640" rel="nofollow">https://nos.nl/l/2594640</a><p>ATC audio: <a href="https://youtu.be/Hto6aTt-X7A?si=2J-NnaXIcOnnWIqS" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/Hto6aTt-X7A?si=2J-NnaXIcOnnWIqS</a>
Why was the Air Force plane’s transponder turned off? This is negligence that almost killed a plane full of people and endangered a national security operation. Outrageous.
It's expected for military operations to fly without transponder, they don't want to have their location visible. But it's crazy that they're also doing it in Curacao controlled airspace without agreeing a restricted area.<p>Even for training they set up restricted/military areas in airspace all the time. Not doing it here, in allied (Curacao is part of the kingdom of the Netherlands) airspace is unacceptable. They could have coordinated this in the normal ways so ATC would route civilian traffic around the military operations or talk to the military controllers (who can see both types of traffic) before sending an aircraft through the shared airspace.<p>This isn't new, it's how military operations are done all the time.
Just a reminder the US military also conducts training operations around large civilian airports within the USA, with their ADS-B turned off, in this instance resulting in the death of 67 people: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_collision" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_col...</a>
Presumably they have flight plans, can listen to ATC, RADAR etc.<p>So what's the plan? Just expect everyone to get out of their way?
Curacao is a few kilometers of the Venezuelan coast, but the Americans have deemed the entire ocean north of Venezuela as military operations. The people in charge probably don't even know Curacao isn't part of Venezuela.<p>With effectively no military and the Dutch government being an American lapdog, I doubt the people in charge need to care. They're already out there with orders to commit war crimes, shooting down an airliner or two that gets too close to their military aircraft wouldn't make much of a difference in the long run.
> The people in charge probably don't even know Curacao isn't part of Venezuela<p>assuming Lieutenant General Evan Lamar Pettus is in charge<p>"""<p>Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy<p>Master of Business Administration (MBA), Bellevue University<p>Master of Science in Logistics Sciences, Air Force Institute of Technology<p>Master of Strategic Studies, Air War College<p>Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training<p>U.S. Air Force Weapons School graduate<p>Squadron Officer School<p>Air Command and Staff College<p>Combined/Joint Forces Land Component Commander Course<p>Combined Force Air Component Commander Course<p>Senior Joint Information Operations Applications Course<p>Combined Force Maritime Component Commander Course<p>Joint Flag Officer Warfighting Course<p>Operational and Leadership Training<p>Qualified as a command pilot with more than 2,700 flight hours in aircraft including the F-15E and A-10, and multiple combat deployments (Operations Northern Watch, Southern Watch, Allied Force, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and Inherent Resolve).<p>Completed F-15E Weapons Instructor Course<p>"""<p>but yeah, he probably doesn't know Curacao isn't part of Venezuela.
The Americans literally want Venezuela to shoot at them so that they can use it as a justification.<p>But Maduro ain't no fool.<p>What people may not know is that Curacao- like many Carribbean islands- is entirely dependent on tourism. Basically they're fucked.
The camel has taken a lot of straw in 2025 but:<p>> shooting down an airliner or two that gets too close to their military aircraft wouldn't make much of a difference in the long run.<p>Would surely break its back?
I used to think that about so many things the Americans have been doing that I no longer have faith that there is a limit to the absurdity.
Look, I understand, but we have a concrete event here that is being discussed and there is no evidence anywhere for what you came up with. Adding feeling-based imagination instead of sticking to facts just makes the discussion much worse - and much closer to behavior you seem to object to.
Did the the camel gain a single stalk when the Vincennes crossed into Iranian territory and shot down a passenger jet?
Well this was a JetBlue airliner, presumably full of American tourists. Probably not a very popular move to shoot that down.
Do they have possibility of receiving the civilian transponders ? Even if it was off they shoudld've picked different flight height...
Turning the transponder off only prevents civilian ATC from knowing your identification and altitude. They will still see your position as a primary target on their radar.
Trump doesn't understand the word "allied".
It's a tanker not a stealth fighter.
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> It's expected for military operations to fly without transponder<p>It's been a problem specifically with US military aircraft for years that they just wander into other people's airspace with transponders off and expect to have it all to themselves.<p>We should just start shooting down anything big enough to need a transponder that is not using one. Doesn't matter who's in it, doesn't matter what it's for.
> We should just start shooting down anything big enough to need a transponder that is not using one. Doesn't matter who's in it, doesn't matter what it's for.<p>Maximum destructive, irreversible response.<p>Even if you think this is sometimes warranted, have you thought of the edge cases? You seem perfectly happy to be shot down yourself, sitting in your airplane with a failed transponder.<p>What's gotten into you to want to kill people so much?
There are already things in place for dealing with failed transponders.<p>It's bad enough that the US already deliberately shoot at their allies (look at all the "friendly fire" incidents the US cause) without them sneaking about in protected airspace without identifying themselves.<p>If there's a military plane flying around without any identification, it's either a Russian flight up to no good or an American one up to no good.
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As unnecessarily harsh as it was, the original comment said or implied nothing of the sort.<p>If anything, it seems to be you who is suffering from an affliction not unlike the one you wanted to recognize in somebody else.
This literally <i>was</i> due to a plot hatched by Trump personally to destroy the sovereignty of someone else and threaten that of many others.<p>It's strange to frame that as if it's some totally wild interpretation of events (though obviously it doesn't justify shooting down anything that isn't transponding)
It must be horrible being you.
> It's called TDS. Blind unfiltered constant rage against Trump, and anything he might represent, as if he is the great marvel super villain.<p>I mean he obviously isn't, he's way too fucking dumb and demented for a good supervillain. Nobody would buy a guy looking like <i>that</i> as the "super villain". Sleasy mafia boss wanting to sleep with your preteen daughter in exchange for a favour, yes. Super villain? Never in his wildest dreams.
> We should just start shooting down anything big enough to need a transponder that is not using one. Doesn't matter who's in it, doesn't matter what it's for.<p>indistinguishable from what someone in the current administration would come up with
Because it’s flying near Venezuela, who we’re currently fucking with militarily.
The proper action then would be to declare war, and announce that the airspace is no longer safe for civilian use.<p>The whole "oh yes, our military is active, but we aren't at war, and yes, the president tweeted about that" spiel is just untenable and ridiculous.
They can't declare war, that would require approval from congress. They're relying on the post-9/11 authorization granted to the president to use the military to go after terrorists and those that harbor them.<p>That is why this administration is leaning heavily into calling the drug traffickers "narco-terrorists" and calling fentanyl their "weapon of mass destruction". They're covering their ass legally so they can invade another country without congressional approval.
<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/alien-enemies-act-explained" rel="nofollow">https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/alie...</a><p>This is what they're using, the legal theory is basically tren de aragua cartel and their drugs is an "invasion" of the USA and is "sufficiently connected" to the Venezuelan government to trigger the act's wartime powers.
To be clear, the post-9/11 AUMF is "specific" to people affiliated with the perpetrators of 9/11. Obviously a nexus <i>can be drawn</i> between a gigantic array of people to the perpetrators of 9/11, and this feature has been abused for decades now, but the Venezuelan situation clearly does not actually (or even allegedly) have any nexus whatsoever to 9/11 and so is clearly <i>not</i> authorized by the 2001 AUMF.
Sure, it wouldn't hold up in any reasonable court, but all they really need is to give congress some excuse to not intervene and pretending this falls under the 9/11 AUMF is good enough. And once the U.S. is at war with Venezuela not even a court order from the supreme court is going to be able to reverse that.
congresss did not declare war for any of the post wwii wars.
While technically true, they did give authorization to both Iraq and Afghanistan as well as others.
Even without a deceleration of war, any use of the military requires congressional approval unless it falls within some authorization congress has already granted.
Welcome to the Brave New World (Order) of post-truth, post-law and <i>special military operations</i>.
we wouldn’t be doing that, we voted for President that will end all the wars, not start new ones
Thank you for buying my bridge, no refunds asked and zero money back down
I think you have "war" confused with "blowing up people we're suspicious of". It goes perfectly with "imprisoning and/or deporting people we're suspicious of".
it's only war if it's from the Middle East region of the world, otherwise it's just sparkling law enforcement
If you thought you were, you were tricked.
Nicolas, Uday, and Qusay Maduro have 48 hours to leave Venezuela. Until then, we have not launched a special military operation.
Yes. The tanker plane with its turned off transponder off the coast is totally not a military operation.
Real quick, I'm trying to remember a word, it's on the tip of my tongue. It's when one country uses military force in order to make another country have significant internal political changes. Just on the tip of my tongue....
As if these kind of people care about such a threat. They do not care about "their" country, "their" country is a resource they control. They very much prefer to sacrifice the whole countries population until the tanks stand in front of their bunker and then they take the "clean self-exit".
We? Seems like a personal vendetta from my perspective. I in no way shape or form want to send Americans to Venezuela for the holidays to start an armed conflict.
You guys get what you voted for, time to take some responsibility.
Without oil it's hard to keep the monstertrucks rolling down the highways, people have to drop their kids off at school!
We are a net exporter of oil and have been for nearly two decades. We can keep our monster trucks rolling just fine.
Gotta think about economy and those sweet sweet deals bringing tons of money and power to orange clan err economy and jobs! Its all fault of mexicans after all! Anyway I am sure there can be a new resort/casino or two somewhere there
How do you know what he voted for?
What did you vote for?
Most of us didn’t vote for Trump. A slim majority of voters did, many of them because he is generally anti-war. (I’ve never liked or voted for him, but his desire to end wars is sincere.)<p>Many of his ardent supporters are confused as to what we’re doing in Venezuela right now and feel it’s the opposite of what they voted for.<p>You certainly don’t expect this level of surprises from someone’s second term, but the unprecedented path of his political career has certainly made it much different.
Interestingly in the Netherlands there is a custom that the majority of parliament has to agree to any military missions.<p>In America one guy can start wars.
48.34% shouldn’t be confused with majority.
> I’ve never liked or voted for him, but his desire to end wars is sincere<p>I mean, evidently not.
Trump didn't even get a majority of votes cast.<p>Over 77 million people voted against Trump.<p>About 73 million were not old enough to vote.
And 88 million people signaled they were fine with either candidate, by not voting. 165 million people out of 264 millions eligible voters supported this.
Nope. Sorry. From outside the US, there is just the US. We dont understand your "us vs them" tribalism nor the political divide. Every US citizen at this point is responsible for what's going on. Regardless of who you voted for. All of this is due to decades of complacency by the citizenry, it's not some sudden surprising coup.<p>I'm not saying the rest of the world is in the clear though. I think many countries are headed in a similar direction. Hopefully this is the wakeup call we all need to step up and arrest this slide into authoritarianism that's happening everywhere.
Venezuelans also don't want you to send Americans.
You have to own it at this stage. Even if you didn't vote for it. Particularly as that tangerine is in for a second innings. All the world wants to hear is what you're doing to fight the situation, not that it's not your fault.<p>Thanks
Can’t you do it safely, with transponder on? It’s not like it will get softer or anything.
I believe the term of art de jour is “special military operation”
Is it an inside joke I missed?
'Militarily' here and another comment had 'Bigly'.
Is it a Trumpism?
Common sense would dictate that a military aircraft conducting military operations off the coast of a hostile nation tend to not want to broadcast their position to the world. So not outrageous, just unfortunate. It's extremely common.
I’m sorry, which hostile nation?
The United States.
What day is it?
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If you initiate a military conflict with another nation, the proper thing to do is to declare war first.
On the other side it is perfectly visible on radar (and can be heard (and with jet having its own characteristic signature it can be tracked even by WWII microphone array like they did back then) and visible in binoculars from large distance in nice Caribbean weather), so it is hiding only from civilians. Security by obscurity kind of. That is especially so in the case of a slow large non-maneuvering tanker plane like here.<p>And why would a tanker plane come close to and even enter the hostile airspace?! may be one has to check Hegseth's Signal to get an answer for that, probably it is something like "big plane -> Scary!" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mUbmJ1-sNs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mUbmJ1-sNs</a>.
The information broadcast by transponder is significantly more precise than what you will get with radar, microphone array, or binoculars.<p>GPS Lat & Long
Barometric Altitude
Ground speed & track angle
Rate of climb/descent<p>All updated every second or so.
I can just about guarantee it has nothing to do with targeting and a lot to do with making Venezuela unsure when strikes are about to start, both for security of the forces launching the eventual strikes (if any) and to harass/wear-down Venezuelan air defenses by keeping them very alert.<p>If our aircaft were flying transponders-on during all these exercises then suddenly went dark, it’d signal imminent attack. This keeps them guessing. Possibly we’re even playing around with having them on some of the time for some aircraft, and off at other times.<p>We don’t do that with AWACS and such near Russia because we’re not posturing that we may attack them any day now, and want to avoid both accidental and “accidental” encounters with Russian weapons by making them very visible. In this case, an accidental engagement by Venezuelan forces probably isn’t something US leadership would be sad about.
I live near JBLM in Washington. I am routinely overflown by helicopters and planes (C-17s) often with their transponders off (I have an ADS-B receiver running on a VM). These are training flights that are not going anywhere outside of the Puget Sound region. For added fun, I'm also pretty close to several Sea-Tac approaches.
> is significantly more precise than what you will get with radar<p>Is that increase in precision much larger than the plane itself? If it's not then it couldn't possibly matter in this application.<p>Further radar is not a static image. The radar is constantly sweeping the sky, taking multiple measurements, and in some cases using filtering to avoid noise and jitter.<p>> GPS Lat & Long Barometric Altitude Ground speed & track angle Rate of climb/descent<p>You get or synthesize every one of those with radar as well.
Yes, ADS-B is significantly more precise than <i>civilian</i> primary radar returns. That's why the FAA is trying to move away from radar. The JetBlue near miss was about 150 miles from Curacao ATC which is beyond what most ASR systems cover (around half that).<p>Military radar is a different beast, but even then you're still trying to figure out what the returns mean. ADS-B explicitly says hey there are two aircraft in a tiny space. Civilian radar is likely not precise enough to identify two aircraft that close.
Isn't altitude information also one of the important things about ADS-B that radar lacks?<p>Although ADS-B is self reported and "vulnerable" to bad/spoofed info.<p>My CFI and I once saw ADS-B data from one of the startups near Palo Alto airport in California reporting supersonic speeds... at ground level, no less.<p>Edit: still have it in my email, heh. It was a Kitty Hawk Cora, N306XZ, reporting 933kts at 50'.
Even good stereopair like a WWI navy guns rangefinder, will give you all that info, of course not precise enough to lock a missile - well, transponder also wouldn't let you to anyway, and thus all that transponder precision is pointless in that context.
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> a national security operation<p>You answered your own question here.<p>Military planes doing military things always fly with their transponder off. It would be suicide not to.
The US could issue a notice of an Alert Area where military operations are in progress AND could coordinate with Dutch airspace authorities.<p>US AWACS has the capability to identify civilian aircraft and route military traffic well clear of civil traffic.
They could also not invade a country that did nothing to attack them, but I guess that’s asking too much.
Notice was put out NOV<p><a href="https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/us_restrictions/venezuela/KICZ-Advisory-NOTAM-A0012-25.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/us_restrictions...</a>
A sizable chunk of the world is currently considered hazardous for commercial aviation.[1] Ops.group maintains a quick reference map. It's bad.<p>[1] <a href="https://safeairspace.net/" rel="nofollow">https://safeairspace.net/</a>
Yeah that's not for TNCF (curacao) but venezuela (SVZM) airspace. So that's approximately zero excuse.
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US military planes & helis sure seem to be doing a lot of endangering people lately...and not the right ones
Delivered directly to your doorstep from the government of “no new wars”, guided by “peace president”.
Nothing says "no wars" than naming a minister of War
Hey, come on, you don't win a FIFA Peace Prize unless you absolutely deserve one.
Being allies really doesn't mean anything anymore, does it?<p>I really wonder how long it will take to rebuild all these burned bridges.
What does allies have to do with this situation? Both aircraft involved were American.
Will the US ever get back to where they were, as the world's only superpower and "world police"?<p>I just don't see how we're going back.
unlikely, at least not during this generation. even putting aside the current admin, the US has (to put it extremely lightly) long failed to police its own and certain "allies'" behavior, which undermines the concept altogether.<p>at this point, there are unfortunately no "good guys" at the state level.
Someone has to prevent the execution of journalist who speak out against the regime and that has no due process and also have highest execution rate of any country. They labeled "Authoritarian state" by Amnesty International and Humans Rights Watch and "Systemic human-rights violator" by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.<p>Oh wait, i mixed up Saudi Arabia one of the US's closets allies with Venezuela.
generations
meh, bridges get constantly burned and rebuilt between allies and enemies both - just another day really
If a bridge gets built then destroyed, built then destroyed, built then destroyed and so on, people will stop using it. They'll also stop trusting the bridge builder.
You run into trouble if someone manages to set all of them on fire at once.
People all over the world are already building new bridges to places like China, so even if the old ones are rebuilt, they might get substantially less use.
I always get the impression that whenever military/police have the option to turn off ADS-B, they do. Not just in the US or by US forces. Not just on sensitive flights. I don't think the toggle ever gets used.
Nothing beats a JetBlue holiday
In other news, the National Defense Authorization Act working its way through congress is trying to loosen restrictions around DCA that were put in place after a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet.
> The Air Force jet then entered Venezuelan airspace, the JetBlue pilot said. "We almost had a mid-air collision up here."<p>They simply should stay the fuck away from that airspace then. And by that I don't mean JetBlue.
This perhaps isn't the lind of lethality the DoD has in mind.
So never fly in or out of DCA, and avoid anywhere near Venezuela.
Call me crazy, but I think any time, any where, without any exceptions whatsoever, someone wants to fly a multi-ton chunk of metal, they need to broadcast telemetry in a cleartext, open standard.<p>I understand that this might be disruptive to people who want to drop explosives on other people, and while this disruption is a fantastic benefit, it's only a side-effect.
To be sure, the relevant statutory regulation[1] didn't always read the way how it does.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-91/subpart-C/section-91.225" rel="nofollow">https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...</a>
Yeah, exactly. I've been watching adsb activity over my house for years, and in the past few weeks, for the first time, I have activity (helicopter and jet) in my area that it not visible.<p>It's unnerving, and unbecoming of an egalitarian society.
[dupe] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46269601">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46269601</a>
We have the best mid-air collisions. Noone does it better, or so people tell me. We don't do sleepy silent disappearances over the Bermuda Triangle, that's SAD!! We blow em up, BIGLY, in someone else's airspace. A great PRESIDENT knows how to WIN at mid-air collisions. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Isn't this technically an act of war against the Netherlands?
Anything <i>can</i> be an act of war.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859)</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War</a><p>Or we just make them up. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell%27s_presentation_to_the_United_Nations_Security_Council" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell%27s_presentation_...</a><p>No, the Netherlands won't consider this to be anything of the sort.
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> Caribbean nation of Curacao<p>It's the first time I hear someone calls Curaçao a "nation". It's just the normal Dutch island, not even some special status territory. Yes, it's in Carribean, but why do they omit "Dutch" and call it a "Carribean nation"?
I find words in the same category as "country", "nation", "state", etc are increasingly used interchangeably. Largely because they tend to be far more specific than people mean to be... but also because generic terms like "polity" never caught on in the mainstream. A similar thing is how "nation-states" would appear to be the only type of place worth worrying about highly organized attacks from in infosec, until you ask them to define what they consider a nation-state.<p>That said, I don't think it's accurate to paint Curaçao as just another normal Dutch island the same as any other. It's really a constituent country that's part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, just not a sovereign state or a nation.
A nation-state is a state whose borders and (originally) citizenship are largely defined by a singular nationality. Israel and Japan, for example. Belgium and Canada are not nation states: they are split into French and Flemish, and Anglo and French nationalities, respectively.<p>It is a 19th century term that rarely applies these days, but still sees some residual usage.
To complete the other half of the story for those not familiar: most all infosec references to "nation-state attack" instead use it to mean "government backed attack" (regardless if a nation-state is involved in the context).
Anglo, French _and Aboriginal_ nationalities. That's not a minor detail to exclude.
It's hard to use them consistently because there isn't a single universally accepted definition.<p>Most people would consider the Netherlands a "country", but now we have a country within that country. Israel is a state, Japan is a state, but there are 50 states in the United States. "[People's] Republic of XYZ" generally refers to a sovereign state, but Russia has republics inside. You can't just call something what the locals call it and expect that your readers will get the picture. Even worse, people are often deeply divided as to what a given territory should be called.<p>So I will generally forgive journalists for picking a neutral-sounding, ambiguous expression in cases like this. What matters here is that the Dutch control this airspace, regardless of Curaçao's status within their kingdom.
Lots of small islands have similar status, for example The Cayman Islands, Bermuda & Puerto Rico.
I'm a state actor because I always remember my lines when I go up on stage.
It's not part of the country the Netherlands anymore. They voted to leave.<p>They're still in the kingdom which means they're not completely on their own but nation is a good word.
Curacao has been a country that is part of the kingdom of the Netherlands since 2010.
technically, it's a country within the Kingdom :)
the bigger question is: what business does the Netherlands have all the way across the ocean in an island? Who gave them the "right" to own it?
What do you mean "all the way across the ocean". From where? The distance from Curaçao to the Dutch people is exactly zero.<p>What "right" are you talking about, is there an agency where we file a claim, and it issues us "rights"?<p>All people from all nations, tribes and states came from somewhere, sometimes even replacing the local population. Sometimes peacefully, like Anglo-Saxons pushed out local Britons in England, sometimes violently, like Normans invaded and conquered England.<p>Or like the rich and diverse American Indian history -- tribes came and went, sometimes replaced, pushed out, conquered or assimilated with previous peoples who lived there. Please define "right".
We didn't have the right, obviously, but it has happened and we need to deal with the current situation. And the Netherlands has offered them sovereignty multiple times in the last fifty years, they can leave anytime they want. But nowadays they want to stay in the kingdom, mostly because it offers them some security and stability.
The same business the US has in Guam or Puerto Rico, the UK in the Bahamas etc. It was a colony. They decided to become independent but still part of the kingdom of the Netherlands which was their choice. So the current status is such because the people of Curacao have decided they wanted it this way.
You could pick up a history textbook and find out.
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Not sure I’d call crossing traffic “within a few miles” a near-miss. Even at full cruising speed of 500-600MPH (less because the JetBlue was still on a climb) the civilian aircraft would cover a mile in 6-7 seconds, so we are talking 18 to 24 seconds to close 3-4 miles.<p>Also, it a common for military aircraft to not have a transponder on, especially in the vicinity of threats. Without a transponder the civilian aircraft TCAS/ACAS would not warn about traffic.<p>Not sure how far off the coast of Venezuela this occurred, but there are some very real SAM threats the Air Force aircraft would need to worry about.<p>(edited typos)
Large aircraft take a while to avoid collisions due to their size and both jets are in motion. So this could have been within 5-10 seconds of a collision depending on specifics. The critical issue is the civilian aircraft “took evasive action on Friday to avoid a mid-air collision with a U.S. Air Force tanker plane near Venezuela, a pilot said in an air traffic control recording.”<p>Which needs to be reported as it then can impact other air traffic to avoid further issues.
Even if the military plane had its transponder off, the civilian plane didn't. The military pilot had no justification for not knowing the civilian plane was there and at a minimum adjusting its altitude to make this a non issue.
> Not sure I’d call crossing traffic “within a few miles” a near-miss. Even at full cruising speed of 500-600MPH (less because the JetBlue was still on a climb) the civilian aircraft would cover a mile in 6-7 seconds, so we are talking 18 to 24 seconds to close 3-4 miles.<p>Sweet, so they've got less than half a minute to avoid a collision.
> Not sure how far off the coast of Venezuela this occurred<p>64km off the coast of Venezuela.<p>> Also, it a common for military aircraft to not have a transponder on<p>Is it actually common for military aircrafts with transponders off to mix and match with public traffic in activate flight regions? One would think if there is threats somewhere, they'd first mark the region as restricted, so no public airplanes go there in the first place, then they can fly without the transponders.
> Is it actually common for military aircrafts with transponders off to mix and match with public traffic in activate flight regions?<p>As a pilot, I can tell you it happens all the time. Even in US domestic airspace. Transponder use is optional for the military, and they will turn them off for some training missions. (Or in this case, a real mission.)<p>No, they don't close the airspace when this is being done.<p>The pilots of both aircraft (civilian and military) are supposed to be keeping a constant visual watch for traffic. The military aircraft should also be keeping an eye on primary radar.<p>(Transponder use is also optional for some civilian aircraft, btw.)
> The pilots of both aircraft are supposed to be keeping a constant visual watch for traffic.<p>How's that supposed to work with Instrument Flight Rules, for which you <i>literally</i> train by wearing glasses which block your view outside the window [0]? And how are you supposed to spot an airplane coming at you with a closing speed of 1000 mph (1600 kmh)? It'll go from impossible-to-see to collision in a few seconds - which is why you won't see any "they didn't look outside the window enough" in the report of accidents like Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907.<p>The whole point of Air Traffic Control is to <i>control air traffic</i>. Sure, there's plenty of uncontrolled airspace where you do indeed have to look out for traffic, but it's uncontrolled precisely because it rarely if ever sees commercial traffic.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.sportys.com/jeppshades-ifr-training-glasses.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.sportys.com/jeppshades-ifr-training-glasses.html</a>
> The pilots of both aircraft (civilian and military) are supposed to be keeping a constant visual watch for traffic. The military aircraft should also be keeping an eye on primary radar.<p>So in your opinion, that was went wrong here, the military/pilot of the refueling plane didn't actually keep visual watch for traffic nor radar?
I've been buzzed by a flight of military helicopters in the New Mexico desert. Not intentionally, they just happened to overfly my tent, and I just happened to have cell service somehow. I checked ADSB and sure enough they were flying dark.
Not necessarily; the same remoteness that made cell signal sparse likely makes ADS-B ground stations unlikely. There has to be one in range for it to show up places like FlightAware. Plenty of dead spots; you can help expand the network! <a href="https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build/" rel="nofollow">https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build/</a>
I have an ADS-B receiver on a computer here, and am overhead a number of flight paths for JBLM.<p>The above comment is accurate, plenty of local training helicopter flights will be fully or partly dark (lights and/or transponders off), looking at my receiver's raw output stream.
ADSB is not mandatory in the US below FL100 or FL180 (10000/18000 feet), that covers most helicopter flights.<p>It depends also on the website you are using to track. I have an ADSB receiver that publishes to multiple tracking websites (the same data, unfiltered), and not all of them publish all the data. Flightradar24 doesn't show most of the military aircraft - I can see them on my local tracking interface but they are not shown on their website.
If the positioning [here](<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUcs1LCjhcs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUcs1LCjhcs</a>) is at all close to accurate, that looks closer to 300km, with the entirety of Aruba between them & the closest point in Venezuela. (Or all of Curaçao, but I think that line is longer.)<p>(TFA does say 64 km, though.)<p>Edit: I'm not sure about 64 km. The 64km is for the Curaçao departing flight, but Curaçao's airport is itself 80 km from Venezuela, and they headed north pretty immediately? I.e., … they would have never been < 80 km…?
> Edit: I'm not sure about 64 km. The 64km is for the Curaçao departing flight, but Curaçao's airport is itself 80 km from Venezuela, and they headed north pretty immediately? I.e., … they would have never been < 80 km…?<p>If you take off from Curaçao and head like 10km west before you've actually left the island, you end up pretty much within 64km of Adicora, Venezuela. Probably what they meant I guess.
Threats are not to civilian aircraft. If conflict occurs areas would become restricted.
> Not sure I’d call crossing traffic “within a few miles” a near-miss.<p>Generally, from what I can find, the FAA definition is <500ft, so no, a few miles is potentially an issue, but not what would generally be categorized as a near miss unless there is some situational wrinkle that applies here.
The Air Force is probably used to flying much closer to one another, but civilians are not. Even in a busy airspace, jet airliners are usually kept apart >1000ft vertically, and much more horizontally in the direction they're moving. These birds can fly 500ft in less than 1 second after all.
> The Air Force is probably used to flying much closer to one another, but civilians are not.<p>The FAA isn’t primarily concerned with the Air Force. They investigate and address loss of separation incidents that fall short of rheir definition of near misses, they just don’t describe them as near misses.
I wasn't talking about the FAA definition specifically, only that military pilots probably have a narrower definition of a near miss than civilians do.<p>They also seem to be overconfident in their ability to identify, track and evade other aircraft. Example: the Helicopter pilot who crashed into a civilian jet over the Potomac earlier this year.
Well common enroute separation is 5NM so in aviation, it's close.<p>Is there a NOTAM for military traffic on this area?
What if it was dark, or cloudy? Or the pilots weren't looking outside?
> there are some very real SAM threats the Air Force aircraft would need to worry about<p>The US Air Force should /absolutely/ be worried about Venezuela fighting back, with SAMs or otherwise. This military action and potential war is a travesty and the whole world should condemn and ostracize the USA immediately.