United airliner reports near-collision with stealth fighter

U.S. Air Force stealth fighter

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LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- A United Airlines passenger jet with 173 people on board narrowly avoided colliding with a military jet Thursday over Southern California, according to government and airline officials.

The Air Force has confirmed the military jet was a stealth-design Air Force F-117 that is part of the 410th flight test squadron. Stealth technology allows aircraft and other equipment to be masked from various types of electronic detection.

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United Flight 174 departed from Los Angeles International Airport for Boston at 8:38 a.m. and was cleared to climb to an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,550 meters) by air traffic control, said airline spokesman Matt Triaca.

As the Boeing 757 continued its climb, Triaca said, its onboard collision avoidance system, T-CAS, indicated the presence of another aircraft where it should not have been. The United jet had to level off at 10,800 feet (3,276 meters) to allow the military jet to pass overhead.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Eliot Brenner said the pilot had estimated the distance between his aircraft and the F-117 "stealth" fighter as 500 feet (152 meters) vertically and six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) horizontally.

Near airports, aircraft must normally keep at a distance of three miles (4.8 kilometers). Outside the airport zone, that distance widens to five miles (eight kiolmeters), Brenner said.

The Air Force confirmed it is investigating the United report. Dennis Shoffner, a spokesman for Edwards Air Force Base, said the plane involved in the incident was on a training flight and was "not in stealth configuration." He said the aircraft was flying according to Federal Aviation Administration rules and had a standard transponder to alert other aircraft to its presence.

The incident happened just minutes after takeoff -- between 8:40 a.m. and 8:50 a.m., according to another airline pilot who overheard the conversation between the United pilot and the control tower -- over the Palmdale Desert area east of Los Angeles near Edwards.

No injuries were reported, and the United jet, with 166 passengers and a crew of seven aboard, arrived in Boston at 4:36 p.m., two minutes behind schedule, according to the United Web page.

A United spokesman said passengers might not have noticed anything was wrong.

The Federal Aviation Administration and United have each launched an investigation, and officials at the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates air traffic control problems, also said it was looking into the matter.

Pentagon officials had no immediate information or comment on the incident.

The 410th flight test squadron reports to the 412th test wing at Edwards but flies out of Air Force Plant 42, which is in Palmdale, California. The plant is a government-owned contractor facility where the B-52 bomber was built, as well as a space shuttle.

CNN Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre, CNN Correspondent Charles Feldman and Reuters contributed to this report.

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