Can someone "in the know" look into whether there may have been a near-miss today (9/24) at about 5:20-5:25 pm? There was a KC-135 that appeared to be on final for Runway 8L flying over Ocean Pointe in Ewa Beach. Suddenly, I heard the engines spool up and then the KC powered into a banking right turn towards the ocean, flying right over Fort Weaver Road. That alone caught my attention with its unusualness ... high power and sudden turn in a different direction. A few seconds later, I saw a four-engine (wide body?) on final with gear down and flaps deployed. There couldn't have been more than 1000ft vertical, and maybe one mile horizontal separation between the two, and I can only wonder what the wake turbulence could have been for the second aircraft. The KC was way east of where the C-17s, P-3s, and C-130s sometimes orbit the Kalaeloa pattern, and practice whatever they do. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
5 comments:
Quick research on liveatc...
UAL328 was arriving at the time (B744) and was advised of the traffic (KC-135 in the climb at 900), but no resolution advisories (or even traffic advisories) were issued by ATC. I'm not entirely sure where the KC-135 came from, possibly PHJR, though I don't normally see KC-135s there.
You may want to dig around Liveatc a bit and you might be able to find out more.
I don't know specifically what happened here, but I did hear a KC-135 on 118.3 doing practice approaches into JRF about 20 minutes prior.
Not exactly "in the know," but here's LiveATC's HNL Tower feed from the relevant period:
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/phnl/PHNL-Twr-Sep-25-2013-0300Z.mp3
At the 23:28 mark (1728 local), tower calls a traffic alert to United 328, a 747 inbound from SFO, telling them to look for traffic at 11 o'clock, 1 mile, low. Seems like the tower didn't have comms with it? They cite a type unknown, but visually IDing a KC-135, who was by then (23:40) already passing from 328's left to their right at 180 kts.
Always a bit tough to decipher the chatter on LiveATC, but sounds like nothing else to United 328 until they land.
Thanks all...I agree...I have never seen KCs operating at JHR. C-17s, C-130s, P-3s, and I've even heard about a AN-124.
Watching it happen and hearing the engines spool up really made things much more dramatic.
The Hawai‘i Air National Guard KC-135Rs use JRF for touch-and-go practice, while their C-17As use NGF.
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