Air-ground radio communications have revealed that a JetBlue Airbus A320 crew in the Caribbean was startled by a US Air Force tanker in their vicinity which apparently did not have its transponder active.
The A320 had been operating from Curacao to New York JFK as flight B61112 on 12 December.
Some 15min after take-off it had been instructed to follow a heading of 005° and cleared to climb to 35,000ft.
Air traffic control then gave the crew a direct routing to the KARUM waypoint, which lies on the boundary between the Curacao flight information region and the Santo Domingo upper information region.
But some 5min later – around 17:00 local time – one of the A320’s pilot contacted Curacao control, according to radio communications archived by LiveATC.
“We just had traffic pass directly in front of us, within five miles of us – maybe two, three miles – but it was an air-to-air refueller from the United States Air Force, and he was at our altitude,” the pilot said. “We had to stop our climb.”
The controller replied, seeking confirmation that the traffic was at the same altitude, before the pilot responded, stating that the traffic was “heading off to the northeast, right now” and that it was “not painting” – meaning its transponder signal was not showing on the A320’s situation display.
“They passed directly in our flightpath. We had to stop our climb,” he said. “They’re not ‘painting’, they don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous.”
The controller replied, “Yes, I don’t have anything on my scope,” and agreed with the pilot – who subsequently apologised, presumably because air traffic control had not been able to see the tanker either.
“If you can make a note of it…we almost had a mid-air collision up here,” the pilot added, before informing the controller that the tanker was “heading off into Venezuelan airspace, if that helps” – estimating its position at 015° and 150nm from the Curacao DME.
Venezuela’s Maiquetia FIR lies to the east of Curacao airspace while the San Juan FIR of Puerto Rico is situated to the northeast.
The A320 proceeded to JFK and landed about 4h after the occurrence.
“Safety is our top priority,” says JetBlue. “Our crewmembers are trained on proper procedures for various flight situations, and we appreciate our crew for promptly reporting this situation to our leadership team.
“We have reported this incident to federal authorities and will participate in any investigation.”
No details have emerged of the geometric proximity of the two aircraft, or the model of tanker apparently involved.
While the circumstances of the event have yet to be verified and explained, there has been a US military build-up off the Venezuelan coast over the past few weeks.
