July 18, 2025, was the day the heavens over Minot, North Dakota, were treated to an exciting moment that could have otherwise ended in calamity. It was one of the U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers, fresh from a ceremonial flyover of the North Dakota State Fair, that had narrowly avoided crashing into not one but two aircraft—a commercial airliner and a private plane. Since then, there have been a couple of close calls that have posed some very significant questions regarding the coordination of civilian flights and military flights using shared airspace, particularly around tiny airports with thin budgets.
The trouble started when the B-52 from Minot Air Force Base executed its authorized flyover and initiated its approach for Minot International Airport. Meanwhile, SkyWest Airlines Flight 3788, a Delta Connection flight from Minneapolis carrying 76 passengers, was also lining up to land. As the National Transportation Safety Board’s early report revealed, the bomber was precisely where it was supposed to be, on a flight plan previously cleared by Minot’s tower in the area and local radar control. But the controller on duty never warned the bomber crew of the approaching commercial airliner—or the airliner of the presence of the bomber.
And the outcome was a heart-stopping second. The SkyWest pilot, as the aircraft descended upon him, suddenly caught sight of the huge bomber to his right. With time barely to react, he yanked the jet hard to the left, veering it away so violently that passengers were buckled into their seats.
Monica Green, who was sitting up front, also afterward recounted the otherworldly quiet aboard as the plane turned so sharply that people were looking at the ground rather than the horizon. The pilot, who was shaken himself, apologized when they arrived, stating he wasn’t warned.
But the fright did not end. Within sixty seconds, the B-52 barely managed to avoid running into a privately owned Piper PA-28 light aircraft on a loop around the airport by inches. The bomber flew above the small plane about three-quarters of a mile away, according to NTSB analysis—once again without anyone in the tower crew noticing.
The image that has emerged since is one of a controlling tower running at capacity. Only a single controller was on duty that day, and his job was to screen each manually because the tower was out of radar range.
To add insult, the controller needed to get approval from a regional FAA radar center in South Dakota before he could clear flights, a system that gave him little room to exercise his own judgment. Transcripts are said to show some nervousness, call signs confused, and orders given too late to work.
Veteran air safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, who has also investigated the same kind of crashes, identified the primary failure as not instructing the Delta aircraft and the Piper to stand down earlier so that they would have been safely clear of the bomber. Three aircraft did enter the same part of the airspace, though, and it was a disaster.
Luckily, all three aircraft made safe landings and no one was injured. The NTSB isn’t quite putting bodies against the wall yet, simply reporting that the bomber was on its planned schedule and visual separation was technically maintained. The Air Force has pledged full cooperation, and the FAA has launched its own investigation, particularly given that Minot’s tower is run by private contractors instead of FAA personnel.
Near-miss has initiated a larger discussion on aviation safety in the skies. Skies are more crowded than ever, with military aircraft cruising in routine proximity to commercial airliners and general aviation pilots, and small airports with no radar are exposed to new threats. The Minot near-miss is being examined as a case study of how it can go wrong when the system overrelies on an individual’s eyes and judgment.
Nobody was injured, but the near-misses were a stark reminder that in the skies, things can go wrong so rapidly. For the aviation community, the message is clear: with traffic accumulating and flights overlapping, coordination must be tighter and equipment better than ever—because in the air, the worst can happen from the smallest mistake.