Southwest passengers talk about ‘close call’ flight at Chicago airport

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT/Gray News) - Passengers who were on a Southwest flight departing from Omaha on Tuesday morning are sharing their stories after the plane had a close call with a private jet while attempting to land in Chicago.

Southwest Flight 2504 took off from Omaha at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday with a scheduled landing at 9:10 a.m. at Chicago Midway International Airport.

The FAA is reportedly investigating the incident, which occurred around 8:50 a.m.

Emily Novak was one of the passengers on the plane when the close call happened.

“We had no idea what happened,” she said. “The pilot kept everyone so calm. There was no panic on the plane at all that I noticed, like he stayed very calm, just made it seem very routine and then we saw the video we were like, ‘What?’ Honest to God had no idea that even happened.”

Novak was flying with a friend, Caley Maszk, who said she was already stressed about flying.

“I was already kind of anxious going on the plane, just because of what’s been happening this year so far with all the flights crashing and things happening,” Maszk said. “So I was already anxious, and then when that happened, I was extra thankful — very thankful for the pilot and everyone who was involved.”

Plane incidents at U.S. airports have been under greater scrutiny by the FAA since 2023.

The issue has been of rising concern in recent weeks because of hundreds of FAA employees who were laid off by the Trump administration just weeks after one of the worst fatal midair collisions took place at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in January.

While the administration has maintained that employees who perform “critical safety functions” were retained, officials didn’t know off-hand whether radar, landing, and navigational aid workers fell into that category.

Union and former employees told the Associated Press in a report two days later that some of the jobs eliminated “had direct roles in supporting safety inspectors and airport operations.”

AP reported that about 400 FAA employees were let go on Feb. 14.

“I just feel very thankful for who we had flying our plane,” Novak said.

Scott Vlasek, the director of the aviation institute at the University of Nebraska-Omaha (UNO), also saw the video. Future pilots are trained at UNO.

“They just did a phenomenal job and probably saved a lot of lives today,” he said. “That’s something they would practice in their simulator sessions.”

Regardless of the training or why this happened, the Omaha passengers say they’re just grateful.

“All I know is they did a great job and got us on the ground safely,” passenger Todd Engel said.

Copyright 2025 WOWT via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.