Two Southwest Airlines planes came dangerously close in Nashville and had to take evasive action

Two Southwest Airlines planes had to take evasive action to avoid colliding Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee, after an air traffic controller directed one pilot to turn into the path of the other plane

Two Southwest Airlines planes had to take evasive action to avoid colliding Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee, after an air traffic controller directed one pilot to turn into the path of the other plane.

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Last year, an American Airlines jet collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C., killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft. That crash on Jan. 29, 2025, put the spotlight on midair collisions, which are rare in commercial flights where the planes are equipped with systems to alert pilots about a potential collision.

Most of the close calls that happen every year involve small planes that don’t have those systems, but the Federal Aviation Administration couldn’t immediately provide a number for how many happen annually. There are typically several collisions involving small planes every year like the one that happened in February 2025 in Arizona that killed two people.