Two Southwest flight attendants injured after jet moved to avoid another aircraft

Two flight attendants on a Southwest Airlines flight departing from Burbank, California, were injured and being treated on Friday after pilots took evasive action to avoid another aircraft, the airline said.

Southwest Flight 1496 sharply descended nearly 500 feet, according to flight tracking websites.

The airline and the Federal Aviation Administration said pilots took action after receiving alerts of a potential collision. The Southwest Boeing 737 continued on to Las Vegas, where it landed uneventfully.

The FAA is investigating.

No passengers were injured, but a passenger identified as Caitlin Burdi told Fox News Digital the sharp descent stirred panic onboard.

“We really thought we were plummeting to a plane crash,” she was quoted as saying.

According to a statement from Southwest, the incident began when its crew responded to “two onboard traffic alerts” while taking off from Burbank, “requiring them to climb and descend to comply with the alerts.”

The incident came a week after a SkyWest Airlines jet operating as a Delta Connection flight from Minneapolis reported taking evasive action to avoid a possible collision with a U.S. Air Force bomber during a landing approach over North Dakota.

The FAA said on Monday it was investigating last Friday’s near-miss incident involving SkyWest Flight 3788, an Embraer EMBR3.SA ERJ-175 regional jet, which landed safely at Minot, North Dakota.

The Air Force confirmed a B-52 aircraft assigned to Minot Air Force Base had conducted a flyover of the North Dakota State Fair last Friday and that military investigators were looking into the matter.