DOD Flirting With Aviation Disaster: 2nd Near-Collision With USAF Tanker Off Venezuela

Just one day after almost killing everyone aboard a passenger jet, the US Air Force narrowly dodged another near-disaster off the coast of Venezuela — this time with a business jet. For many, the two frightening incidents intensify a perception that the administration’s militarism against Venezuela is as reckless as it is unwarranted and unconstitutional.

For those who missed our reporting on the first near-disaster, on Saturday, a JetBlue Airbus A320 heading to New York’s JFK Airport from the Caribbean island of Curaçao was forced to take evasive action when the pilots suddenly found themselves staring down an approaching USAF refueling tanker at the same altitude and only two or three miles away.

“It was an air-to-air refueler from the United States Air Force…We had to stop our climb and actually descend to avoid hitting them,” the JetBlue pilot told air traffic controllers. “They don’t have their transponder turned on. It’s outrageous.” (A transponder is a device that helps make aircraft appear on the radars of controllers and other aircraft.) The controller replied, “I don’t have anything on my scope.” Here’s a reconstruction of that incident, overlaying radar and audio: 

Now comes news that, on Saturday, the passengers and pilots on a Dassault Falcon 900EX business jet heading to Miami from Aruba had their own brush with death via an Air Force tanker. In this case, an air traffic controller alerted the Falcon pilot and directed him to a new course: “Turn right heading 020. An unidentified traffic, 12 o’clock, closing 10 miles, level not known.”  

After spotting the aircraft, the rattled Falcon pilot informed the controller. “We just got that traffic. I don’t know how we didn’t get an RA for that,” he said, referring to a Resolution Advisory, a command generated by an on-board Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). “They were really close — and you turned us into them.” The controller explained that the unidentified craft “keep[s] turning irregular.” 

Trying to gather as much information as possible about the unidentified craft, the controller asked the Falcon pilot if he could discern its altitude or type. “Somewhere around 26 [thousand feet]. We were climbing right into him.. It was big, maybe like a triple-7, [767], something like that. It was a wide-body.” It’s not clear how CNN confirmed it was an Air Force tanker, but Russ Niles at AvBrief.com similarly concluded that it appeared to be a KC-46 tanker. While there’s no indication of how many were aboard the Falcon 900EX, it’s typically configured to carry 10 to 14 passengers.  

In November, the Federal Aviation Administration warned US carriers about potential dangers from “heightened military activity” at “all altitudes” in and around Venezuela. “Threats could pose a potential risk to aircraft at all altitudes, including during overflight, the arrival and departure phases of flight, and/or airports and aircraft on the ground,” the FAA said in a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM). In response, several airlines cancelled flights in and out of Venezuela. 

Seeking to rein in the administration’s widening military activity around Venezuela, resolutions are advancing in both the House and Senate that would bar the Pentagon from engaging in hostilities there without congressional approval. The House version, may be voted on as early as Thursday, counts Republicans Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Don Bacon among its cosponsors. Republican Rand Paul helped introduce a similar measure in the Senate, saying, “The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote. We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war.”

At the urging of long-hawkish Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump has ordered many aggressive moves in and around Venezuela: 

• Attacking boats purported to be carrying illicit drugs, killing at least 95 people. Compounding the controversy over using the military to summarily execute alleged drug offenders who likely weren’t even heading to the United States, at least one of the strikes included subsequent fire on survivors clinging to the wreckage. 
• Ordering a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. That order on Tuesday came after last week’s interception and seizure of a tanker near the country’s coast, which prompted supertankers bound for Venezuela to make U-turns.  
• Repeatedly threatening land warfare, recently telling reporters that, following on the boat attacks, “very soon we’re going to start doing it on land too.” 
• Flying B-52 bombers near the coastline and F-18 fighters deep inside the Gulf of Venezuela. 
• Reportedly authorizing covert operations to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro, seemingly betraying his campaign promises to be a “peace president” and to resist the Deep State’s long-running obsession with regime change.   

Blockading Venezuela and changing its government was never even mentioned by Trump 2024. Trump instead vowed no regime-change wars.

But the Cuban community in which Rubio was raised long craved using the US to take over Venezuela and then Cuba. And it makes Trump feel tough. https://t.co/kAeHi98Enj

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 17, 2025