[imagesource:unsplash]

Anyone who has ever seen the world map on the Flightradar app will know that there are an insane amount of aeroplanes in the sky at any given moment. But what goes up must come down, and unless something goes horribly wrong, the coming down part is usually quite safe. But recently two reports emerged of ‘close calls’ that will make any frequent flyer’s hair stand on end.

The first involve a United Airlines passenger jet that departed Kahului Airport in Maui on 23 December 2022. United Airlines Flight UA1722 departed the airport as normal and after climbing to 2 200ft, something happened that has still not been properly explained.

As it prepared to climb higher, the aeroplane suddenly went into a 157km/h ‘unexplained descent’ that lasted for 45 seconds until finally, a mere 775 feet above the Pacific Ocean, the pilots managed to wrestle the jet out of the dive. Everyone on board the craft was exposed to more than 2.7G’s as it avoided a catastrophic crash and pulled itself back into the sky. Despite the horrifying ordeal, the plane proceeded to 33 000 feet and safely landed at its intended destination, San Francisco.

Imagesource:twitter/flightradar24]

Following the reports of the pilots, an inspection revealed no cause for the near-fatal nosedive, and following the all-clear from technicians, it departed for Chicago without any further incident. Now, we’re not saying aliens had something to do with it, but the Pacific has always been a strange place where many weird things happen from time to time. We are just glad everyone on board was safe.

So too was everyone on board a SouthWest flight last week when pilots nearly caused a Fed-Ex Cargo plane to land on their roof as they made their way to the taxiway. The two aircraft came as close as 30 metres from colliding Saturday at the main airport in Texas’ capital, with quick thinking by the Fed-Ex crew averting disaster. Passengers on the SouthWest flight were thankfully unaware of how close they came to the end. Have a look at the video:

This is video from the FedEx – Southwest runway incident from last week.

If this doesn’t make you tense up and cringe nothing will. The people on that SouthWest flight have no clue how close to death they came.

Insane. pic.twitter.com/8XlSegNp4I

— DASH (@DocumentingATX) February 9, 2023

[sources:twitter/aircurrent]