President Trump was in the air recently en route to the United Kingdom for a meeting with the nation’s leadership, and as Air Force One flew over Long Island, the craft got just a little too close to another plane, a Spirit Airlines flight on its way to Boston.
The New York Times reports that the Spirit flight was given a stern warning by the air traffic control tower, which condescendingly told the pilot to “get off the iPad” and pay better attention to the path of the plane they were supposed to be flying. It is unclear whether the pilot was, indeed, looking at an iPad at the time the remark was made.
“Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right,” the tower initially told the flight crew, the newspaper notes. However, the pilot seems to have missed the directions, because the tower was forced to repeat its instructions several times. “Pay attention, Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right. Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right now. Spirit Wings 1300, turn 20 degrees right immediately.”
The air traffic control official then got testier: “I’m sure you can see who it is,” they reportedly said, adding, “Keep an eye out for him. He’s white and blue.” It then, apparently, got worse:
The tone of the air traffic controller’s voice grew more exasperated as he apparently tried to get the distracted pilot’s attention. The audio escalated as the controller said, “I got to talk to you twice every time” and “Get off the iPad.”
Citing flight data from Flightradar24, the Times notes that the Spirit plane flight 1300 was approximately 11 miles away from Air Force One when it finally began to “deconflict its flight path” from the president’s plane. The newspaper notes that the closest the two planes came to one other was “eight miles apart, laterally”—which doesn’t seem like very much until you remember that commercial airline jets travel at speeds of 500-600 mph.
When reached for comment by Gizmodo, a Spirit Airlines representative provided the following statement:
Spirit Airlines flight 1300 (FLL-BOS) followed procedures and Air Traffic Control (ATC) instructions while en route to Boston (BOS) and landed uneventfully at BOS. Safety is always our top priority.
The FAA told Gizmodo that it is “aware of social media posts about Air Force One and a Spirit Airlines flight in Boston airspace on Tuesday, Sept. 16.” The agency simply said that “required separation was maintained between the aircraft.”
In recent years, more scrutiny has been aimed at the potential safety issues impacting the commercial airline industry, as controversies involving plane makers (like Boeing) have broken into the news cycle. In 2023, the New York Times claimed that “near collisions” between commercial jets happen on a near-weekly basis. One of the key issues impacting airline safety has been adequate staffing of air traffic control towers. A report released by the National Academies of Sciences states that a small percentage of the FAA’s air traffic control centers are overstaffed, leading to staffing shortages at other locations.
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