A near-miss between a passenger aircraft and a US military tanker has been reported in the skies over Curaçao, 24 hours after a JetBlue passenger plane had to take evasive action.

The pilot of a Falcon 900 private jet told air traffic control he had come “really close” to a large aircraft, believed to be a converted Boeing 767, after taking off from Aruba, the Dutch Caribbean island neighbouring Curaçao, on Saturday morning.

The Curaçao Civil Aviation Authority (CCAA), which monitors the skies above Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, has issued warnings about unidentified aircraft in its airspace, telling pilots to be extra vigilant.

On Friday a JetBlue Airways pilot said he had narrowly avoided a midair collision with a US military aircraft that entered his flight path shortly after the Airbus A320 plane took off from Curaçao.

In the latest incident, the clearly alarmed pilot of the private jet is warned by. air traffic control of “unidentified traffic” at an unknown level straight ahead of him.

The pilot replies: “I don’t know how we didn’t get an RA [resolution advisory] for that, but they were really close. And you turned us into them.” The air traffic controller comments that the aircraft was “turning irregularly”.

He added that the plane was “big, maybe like a 777 or 767, something like that. It was a widebody.”

The US military uses adapted Boeing 767 aircraft as military tankers under the name KC-46.

Escalating tensions

The incidents coincide as tensions escalate between the United States and Venezuela, which lies just to the south of the Dutch Caribbean islands. Last week the US seized a large oil tanker in what Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, branded an act of “criminal naval piracy”.

US president Donald Trump has vowed to seize the oil and has imposed curbs on six more crude oil supertankers, claiming they are part of a “dark fleet” breaching international sanctions.

Trump has also vowed to crack down on Venezuela’s drug gangs and sunk dozens of alleged drug boats, leading to 87 reported deaths. Lawmakers from both US parties have raised concern that defense secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed war crimes by allegedly authorising “second strikes” on survivors.