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Southwest flight nosedives 475 feet to avoid midair crash near Burbank; dramatic video surfaces
Passengers on Southwest flight 1496 from Burbank to Las Vegas experienced frightening turbulence after the jet nosedived at least 475 feet to avoid a midair collision shortly after takeoff. A Flightradar video showing the movement of the flight has surfaced on social media.
According to Fox News, the dramatic fall caused passengers to ‘fly up out’ of their seats and ‘into the ceiling’. The report further added that at least one flight attendant was injured. The airline is yet to confirm the details.
“Myself & Plenty of people flew out of their seats & bumped heads on ceiling, a flight attendant needed medical attention. Pilot said his collision warning went off & he needed to avoid plane coming at us. Wow,” stand-up comedian Jimmy Dore wrote on X, platform formerly known as Twitter.
A passenger, Caitlin Burdi, told Fox News that the turbulence was not normal.
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“About 10 minutes into the flight, we plummeted pretty far, and I looked around, and everyone was like, ‘OK, that’s normal. Then, within two seconds, it felt like the ride Tower of Terror, where we fell 20 to 30 feet in the air. The screaming, it was terrifying. We really thought we were plummeting to a plane crash,” she said.
Steve Ulasewicz told ABC News the pilot announced that they had performed the maneuver to ‘avoid a midair collision’. “The plane was just in a freefall. It was pandemonium,” he told NBC 4 Los Angeles. The publication further added that two attendants were injured.
As per the outlet, the other plane was a Hawker Hunter with the N number N335AX. It was at an altitude of approximately 14,653 feet when the Southwest flight began to descend.
The Southwest flight reached Las Vegas and ‘landed uneventfully’. The airline, as per ABC News, said it is working with the Federal Aviation Administration ‘to further understand the circumstances’ of the event.