A JetBlue flight from the small Caribbean nation of Curaçao halted its ascent to avoid colliding with a US air force refueling tanker on Friday, and the pilot blamed the military plane for crossing his path.
“We almost had a midair collision up here,” the JetBlue pilot said, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic control. “They passed directly in our flight path … They don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous.”
Civilian aircraft can also turn off their transponders, not that it’s relevant.
ATC not having radar is not an issue, the US military most certainly had multiple radars in range. They could tell the tanker to divert way earlier. They wanted an incident.
As for normalcy, the US is part of a small group of countries that has shot down civilian airliners.