B-52 Bomber Nearly Collides with Two Planes Over North Dakota

A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber came within seconds of causing a catastrophic double midair collision over Minot, North Dakota last month, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed in a bombshell preliminary report released Wednesday.

The terrifying incident unfolded on July 19, just after the B-52 performed a ceremonial flyover at the North Dakota State Fair. According to the report, Delta Flight 3788 — carrying 80 passengers — was forced into an “aggressive emergency maneuver” to avoid the bomber, only for the massive aircraft to nearly collide with a small Piper plane less than a minute later.

“It all came together very quickly, and this controller was not on top of it,” aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB investigator, told reporters. “If anyone had hesitated by even a second, we could’ve been talking about multiple planes falling out of the sky.”

Passenger video from inside the Delta jet captured the pilot making a shaky announcement moments after the near-miss.

“Sorry about the aggressive maneuver,” the pilot can be heard saying. “It caught me by surprise. This is not normal at all. I don’t know why they didn’t give us a heads-up.”

But according to the NTSB, the nightmare didn’t end there. After dodging the Delta airliner, the bomber came within one-third of a mile of a small Piper private plane circling near Minot International Airport — a previously undisclosed close call.

Officials confirmed that air traffic controllers never warned the B-52 crew about the incoming Delta flight. “There were confusing and delayed commands coming from the tower,” the report noted.

Transcripts reviewed by investigators reveal a breakdown in communication between Minot’s small, contract-operated control tower and a regional Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar center in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Only one local controller was on duty at Minot at the time. Every instruction had to be cleared by the regional FAA controller first, a process that experts say likely caused fatal delays.

“The system’s broken,” Guzzetti explained. “Small airports like Minot are operating without their own radar systems and often rely on a single controller. When you throw in a massive military bomber, an airliner, and a small plane all converging, you have the perfect recipe for disaster.”

This near-tragedy comes amid growing concerns about U.S. air safety following January’s devastating midair collision over Washington, D.C., which killed 67 people and prompted President Donald Trump to call for a “complete overhaul” of air traffic control operations.

“American skies must be the safest in the world,” Trump said earlier this month during a campaign-style rally in Michigan. “We’re not going to tolerate incompetence that risks American lives.”

The Minot incident is expected to intensify debate over the FAA’s contract tower program, which oversees 265 small airports nationwide. While all three planes landed safely, investigators warn the nation may be “one bad command away” from another disaster.

The NTSB’s final report is expected sometime next year.