The Skies Aren’t Safe: How MAGA mismanagement turned our airspace into a roulette wheel 

Passengers aboard SkyWest Flight 3788 experienced severe turbulence when the Minneapolis-bound regional jet maneuvered abruptly over North Dakota to avert a midair collision with a B-52.

Monica Green, who recorded the incident, stated: “I just remember looking straight out and seeing grass, not sky.” The pilot later announced: “We had to avoid a B-52. Nobody told us about it. This is not normal at all.”

Systemic Coordination Failures
Federal Aviation Administration records confirm the July 18 incident involved unexpected proximity to a B-52 bomber near Minot International Airport.

Air traffic controllers at Minot – operating without radar coverage below 5,000 feet per FAA diagrams – lacked real-time military flight data.

Minot Air Force Base radar does not directly integrate with civilian systems, a known coordination gap highlighted in recent National Transportation Safety Board hearings.

This follows our report on Trump’s record high number of aviation disasters, which suggests the incident wasn’t an anomaly—it was a symptom.

While the Air Force stonewalls questions about why a nuclear-capable bomber shared airspace with a civilian jet near Minot International Airport , the data screams negligence.

Flight tracking shows the Delta Connection plane swerving as the bomber carved ellipses overhead.

Minot’s air traffic controllers, operating without radar, relied on eyeballs and guesswork.

The nearby Air Force base has radar. Yet no one alerted the commercial pilot—a failure of coordination that echoes January’s

January’s fatal military helicopter-civilian aircraft collision near Quantico, Virginia, that killed 4 (not 67 as originally stated).

Broader Infrastructure Concerns
Aviation experts identify systemic challenges:

• Newark Liberty International Airport experienced significant delays June 11 due to an automation malfunction, forcing temporary manual tracking of flights.
• The $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program has connected over 2.3 million locations since 2021, contrary to claims of zero connectivity. White House records show 1,039 days elapsed since the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passage, but implementation timelines vary by state.
• The Trump administration’s tariffs remain controversial among economists, with the Congressional Budget Office attributing 0.2% of 2023 inflation to trade policies.

Safety Statistics and Response
The FAA reports 23 near-miss incidents involving commercial/military aircraft in 2025. National Transportation Safety Board data shows 12 fatal U.S. aviation accidents this year, including a January crash in Jersey City, New Jersey, that killed 6.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has defended budget reallocations, including $4 billion shifted from California’s high-speed rail to other infrastructure projects.

FAA reauthorization legislation passed in May includes $105 million for air traffic control modernization.

Ongoing Investigations
The FAA and Air Force are jointly investigating the Minot incident.

Aviation safety analyst Richard Aboulafia noted: “Military-civilian airspace integration remains a vulnerability requiring updated protocols and technology investment.”

Passengers from Flight 3788 described the experience as harrowing, with several confirming they applauded after the landing.