While no one was in danger, a Spirit Airlines jet got a bit too close to Air Force One yesterday, and the pilots got yelled at, as reported by JonNYC.
In this post:
Air traffic control angry with Spirit Airlines pilots
This incident happened on the morning of Tuesday, September 16, 2025, and involves air traffic control transmissions that happened with New York Center. Air Force One, carrying President Trump, was flying in this airspace (as he was heading to London), as was a Spirit Airlines flight. Specifically, Spirit flight NK1300 was operating from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Boston (BOS), with an Airbus A321 that had the registration code N687NK.
As you’d expect, Air Force One gets a bit more separation from planes than other aircraft, and the two planes were flying at roughly the same altitude, and at an angle where they were moving closer to one another.
So the air traffic controller told the Spirit pilots to turn 20 degrees to the right, in order to vector for traffic. However, the pilots didn’t respond immediately, and the instructions had to be given four times:
- “Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right, vectors traffic in descent”
- “Pay attention, Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right”
- “Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right now”
- “Spirit Wings 1300, turn 20 degrees right immediately”
After the fourth transmission, the pilots finally responded, and the air traffic controller then said “pay attention!” A short while later, the air traffic controller said “Spirit 1300, traffic’s off your left wing, by eight miles, 747, I’m sure you can see who it is, keep an eye out for him, white and blue.”
Then when the Spirit pilots were handed over to the next air traffic controller, the previous one finished the transmission by saying “pay attention, get off the iPad.”
This isn’t a huge deal, but is an interesting interaction
No one was in danger here. The planes still had eight miles of separation, which is plenty. If the planes had gotten too close, TCAS would’ve also been activated. However, as you can tell, Air Force One gets special treatment, and gets more separation than other planes.
That being said, if the air traffic control audio is real time (in terms of gaps in communication not being removed), it sounds like the air traffic controller kept giving the instructions back to back without any real pause, so it sure seems like the pilots may have heard the instructions, but were unable to respond, because the controller kept hogging the frequency, no?
Also, in defense of the Spirit pilots, this seemed to happen over a very short period, not long before descent. It’s possible that one of the pilots was using the lavatory, and the other pilot had just received the phone call to let the other pilot back in. So that might explain a pause of a few seconds with answering.
I’m curious if this becomes some story, and/or if something political is made of this. We’ll see…
Bottom line
There was a bit of air traffic control drama at New York Center, as a Spirit Airlines jet got a bit too close to Air Force One, and the pilots had to be told repeatedly to vector for traffic. It almost sounds like the air traffic controller may have been overdoing it in terms of the frequency with which he gave instructions, along with the lack of any pause for the Spirit pilots to respond. Regardless, it makes for some interesting audio…
What do you make of this air traffic control interaction?
As an airline pilot myself who operates out of this airspace on a weekly basis, these controllers are great, humorous at times, but definitely on crack haha. I have almost no doubt he gave the spirit pilots zero time to respond between the transmissions lol
Deportation One! ...if only
It's interesting how AF1 kept telling the Spirit plane to get further away. Was Eric Trump on that Spirit flight?
Nah, they probably weren't paying attention because both pilots were trans or whatnot?
I did not find anywhere in the article that AF1 was communicating with the Spirit airlines pilot. Did you hear that in the recording?
These actions would have been taken by ATC regardless of who is President.
Also, there is a possibility that fighter jets could have been escorting AF1, but no mention of any contact from fighter pilots of a warning.
Since 9/11, security protocols for AF1 have most likely been reviewed...
I did not find anywhere in the article that AF1 was communicating with the Spirit airlines pilot. Did you hear that in the recording?
These actions would have been taken by ATC regardless of who is President.
Also, there is a possibility that fighter jets could have been escorting AF1, but no mention of any contact from fighter pilots of a warning.
Since 9/11, security protocols for AF1 have most likely been reviewed and updated in response to planes being used as weapons, including exploding a plane near AF1 in hopes of shrapnel getting in the engines of AF1. Defensive responses by the fighter jets or AF1 to a plane coming within range of AF1, could be catastrophic for the plane and those on board.
I think fighter jet escort is fairly rare even after 9/11.
AF 1 wasn’t telling Spirit anything. That was the controller.