U.S. aviation regulators are officially investigating the narrow mid-air miss between a JetBlue Airbus 320 bound for New York state and a small aircraft which is reported to be "joyriding" in civil airspace.

The near collision happened around 1:45 in the afternoon on January 25 when the JetBlue plane was coming in for a landing at New York's Westchester County Airport.

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In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said air traffic control advised the pilot steering JetBlue Airways flight 94 that another smaller aircraft was around 3 kilometers away, flying directly at the commercial plane's path.

In a separate statement, JetBlue said that after its pilot received the advice from air traffic control, the pilot then changed the plane's flight path. The Airbus narrowly missed the other jet and landed safely.

One passenger on board the commercial flight, Megan Sikorski, said she spotted the small jet coming through her window, then sought refuge in her mother's lap and held on to the other passenger seated next to her. She felt the plane going up and heard the sound of the other aircraft flying below her.

Rattled passengers said JetBlue's nimble pilots carried out a difficult evasive step after collision alarms in the cockpit went off. Regulators said the two aircraft managed to land safely.

The recent incident comes after several other near misses involving Jetblue planes.

Also this month, a Jetblue plane bound for Austin, Texas had to stop its takeoff and come back to its gate at New York's JFK airport after an incoming Caribbean Airlines Boeing 737 blocked its path. The two airliners were within a kilometer of each other.

In March last year, a United Airlines plane with 155 passengers coming in for a landing narrowly missed an ExpressJet airliner that is about to take off from Newark Liberty International Airport. The two aircraft were reportedly within a couple of hundred of feet apart when air traffic control told the United Airlines jet to halt landing and ascend to avoid a collision.

No one was reported hurt in both incidents. 

TagsFAA, JetBlue, plane collision