A new flight safety incident that could have had a tragic outcome occurred Friday in Washington, D.C., when a U.S. Air Force aircraft flew too close to a passenger jet, causing an alarm to sound in the passenger cockpit.

The incident, as reported by CNN, involved a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 taking off from Ronald Reagan Airport and an Air Force T-38 aircraft, a type often used for pilot training.

Delta Flight 2983 departed the airport around 3:15 p.m. (local time) and was headed to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport on a scheduled flight. The military aircraft took off and landed at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

Data from FlightRadar24 shows the T-38 passing close to the Delta plane at speeds of more than 550 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 800 feet (about 250 meters).

The near miss occurred just south of the airport, near where an American Airlines aircraft and a military Black Hawk helicopter collided on January 29, killing 67 people.

The Delta pilot told air traffic controllers that the military plane passed 500 feet below him while he was in the takeoff phase. The control tower confirmed it. In addition, the pilot said he heard the alert from the TACAS (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System) system that warns the pilot that he must avoid a collision.

There were two pilots, three flight attendants, and 131 passengers on board the Delta aircraft.