A passenger aboard a United Airlines flight headed for California recently reported that while cruising at 33 thousand feet over the Pacific Ocean the plane nearly collided with another.

A passenger aboard a United Airlines flight headed for California recently reported that while cruising at 33 thousand feet over the Pacific Ocean the plane nearly collided with another.

Oddly, until Kevin Townsend wrote an essay about the experience the public at large hadn’t been informed of it.

The near miss occurred on April 25th.

According to Townsend’s personal account the aircraft he was on suddenly took a 600-foot dive.

There were no advance warnings, instructions, or fasten seat belt instructions.

Shortly after the incident a clearly shaken flight attendant took to the intercom and announced that the event was unexpected but was taken to avoid another aircraft.

A bit later she returned to tell passengers that for the remainder of the flight access to the DirecTV entertainment system would be free.

In his subsequent research into the incident Townsend learned that the 757’s automatic safety system had issued the warning that there was another craft in the flight path.

The pilot was instructed to immediately decrease the flight’s altitude, which is what he did.

Had the alert not sounded, or the pilot been slower to respond, the crash could have resulted in the death of about 590 passengers and crew from both planes, making it the largest in history.