A passenger jet on its initial approach to the Asheville Regional Airport in October came within seconds of colliding midair with a private plane in a harrowing incident described by the jet’s captain in federal data obtained by Asheville Watchdog.

The private plane was “so close that I could see the occupant in the aircraft,” the jet’s captain reported. “It was approaching almost directly perpendicular to us.”

Shem Malmquist, a Boeing 777 captain and consultant on aviation safety, told The Watchdog the planes likely narrowly averted disaster. “If you’re close enough to see the occupants, that’s really close,” he said. 

The account in the Aviation Safety Reporting System, a database maintained by NASA to identify aviation issues, does not include any identifying information such as the names of the airline or pilots, the flight number or departing city, the number of passengers, or the day of the month. The event was described as an “NMAC,” near midair collision and occurred sometime between noon and 6 p.m.

The collision last week between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter was one of the nation’s deadliest in recent history, killing 67 passengers and crew members, and occurred in the crowded, busy airspace of the U.S. capital. But close calls happen at much smaller airports, including Asheville.

The captain in the October near-miss reported that the airport’s air traffic control tower had informed the flight crew about “traffic.”

“I responded that we were looking,” the captain said. “We were unable to get a visual on the traffic however.”

A few minutes later, “Tower came back and she said it was less than a mile do we have it in sight [sic]. I only responded with no, as we were trying to find the traffic and Tower responded immediately to cancel approach clearance and to climb to 6000.”

Advisory issued when aircraft are 15-35 seconds from colliding

During the ascent, the airliner’s collision avoidance system issued a “resolution advisory” or RA, an urgent warning when two aircraft are 15 to 35 seconds from colliding without a change in course. The advisory instructed the crew to descend.

As the jet leveled off and began the descent, the captain looked out the first officer’s window and spotted the small, single-engine plane and its pilot, within eyesight, perpendicular to the airliner.

“It was slightly lower than us and also descending,” the captain reported. “I saw that our guidance was to continue to descend but using my own judgment of what I’m looking at visually I chose to say to the FO [first officer], no climb instead he’s below us [sic].”

As the jet ascended, the RA switched from descend to climb.

“We complied with the climbing RA guidance and safely maneuvered the aircraft away,”  the captain reported. “It was a difficult decision to change the aircraft path by starting a climb when the RA wanted us to descend. Especially because it is supposed to resolve the conflict. But after making visual contact with the aircraft I knew we needed to climb away from it.”

A synopsis of the event said the private plane “was crossing the [airliner’s] final approach course and not in communication with ATC [Air Traffic Control]. Captain took evasive action to avoid a collision.”

Tina Kinsey, a spokeswoman for the Asheville Airport, referred questions from The Watchdog to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA did not respond by deadline to questions, including whether the event was investigated and how close the planes came to a collision.  

Malmquist said resolution advisories are “really rare.” 

Airliners are equipped with airborne collision avoidance systems that serve as a “last resort” for preventing midair collisions by instructing pilots to perform evasive maneuvers, according to the FAA.

“It’ll first give you just a target advisory,” said Malmquist, a graduate lecturer at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla. “It’ll just say, ‘Traffic, traffic,’ and then just address your attention, be paying attention. And that’s already getting pretty close before it does that.

“And then, if it’s predicting collision,” he said, “it will command an immediate response, and response to that we’re trained is mandatory.”

Malmquist, an airline pilot since the 1980s, said he could recall receiving just one RA in all his flights.

“I mostly fly International,” he said. “I would expect airplanes that are flying domestically encounter it more often.”

He said the FAA may have investigated the incident if the private plane “was in the wrong spot.”

Close calls involving commercial airlines have been on the rise and are alarmingly common, occurring multiple times a week, often at or near major airports, a New York Times investigation found.

Frontline aviation workers, including pilots, air traffic controllers, mechanics and flight attendants, are encouraged to report incidents, including near-misses, to the NASA reporting database. The information is used for analysis and safety prevention and is scrubbed of identifying details before being made public. 

Four other near-misses have been reported around the Asheville airport since 2003, three involving private planes in close proximity to each other. In the fourth, the pilot of a commercial airliner landing at the airport in January 2023 reported “a drone about 100 ft. below us.”

“We alerted tower about the drone and subsequently had an uneventful landing,” the pilot reported. “The drone appeared to be a personal quadcopter that was not of commercial nature.”

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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