Air Force One, carrying the American first family to the United Kingdom, was involved in a mild drama with a passenger aircraft on Tuesday.
Reports say Donald Trump and his wife were on the plane heading to Britain for a historic second state visit when Spirit Airlines’ jumbo was noticed to be flying at the same altitude.
Worse still, the path the passenger was following would converge with the president’s plane over Long Island, according to multiple reports.
CBS and Bloomberg reported that the development forced an air traffic controller to intervene immediately.
The passenger plane was said to be flying from Fort Lauderdale to Boston at the time of the incident.
A quick-thinking air controller reportedly instructed the pilots of the Spirit Airbus SE A321 to adjust their course.
When neither of the pilots responded to his instructions, he repeated them, raising his voice.
According to recordings from liveatc.net, which were shared by @thenewarea51, the controller told the Spirit flight to descend and turn twenty degrees right.
When the pilots still did not acknowledge the instructions, the controller became more stern, telling them to ‘pay attention’, as he repeated the instruction that they should turn ‘twenty degrees right now!’.
The controller told the pilots that it should be obvious to them ‘who it is’, while urging them to keep an eye out for him.
Apparently irritated, the controller complained that he had to talk to them twice every time, and thundered at them to pay attention and ‘get off the iPad”
When the Daily Mail contacted Spirit Airlines, a spokesperson said the flight was following procedures and Air Traffic Control (ATC) instructions.
He added that the flight landed safely in Boston (BOS).
Air Force One also landed safely at London Stansted Airport without an incident on Tuesday evening.
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