Concerns over 3 near misses in a month
19.05.08
Newcastle Airport bosses are waiting for the results of an investigation into how two Boeing 737 passenger planes almost collided over Newcastle. The incident was one of three reported near misses in less than a month, with aviation experts currently checking flight details after the ‘unusually frequent’ series of incidents from late March to early April.
The UK Airprox Board is investigating the three near misses – known as airprox (for air proximity) incidents – in a bid to discover how close the planes came to a disaster. The first incident, on March 19, saw a Embraer 145 and a Boeing come too close to each other 30 miles north east of the airport just before noon. The E145 was heading to Copenhagen while the B777 was destined for Glasgow. Both were being directed by Scottish Area Control Centre.
Just two days later staff at Newcastle Airport had another incident as two Boeing 737s carrying more than 200 passengers between them came close to each other 3500ft. The planes were both en route to Newcastle Airport on March 21 at 15:10, five miles east of the airport.
Then on April 8 two more aircraft, this time 20 miles north of the airport, were logged as coming too close. The third occasion involved a military aircraft and a 50-seater Saab 200 en route to Aberdeen.
Newcastle Airport bosses have played down the risk to passengers, but experts have warned crowded skies around UK airports - particularly regional airports - are seeing more and more near misses reported. Rob Gifford, Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said: ‘I am really not sure that these are purely coincidence actually.'
‘Three incidents in such a small time period sounds like quite a lot and especially with most involving commercial rather than military aircraft. There is clearly a problem. We’ve seen a substantial increase in these incidents as traffic at regional airports grows and that increase of course increases the potential for something to go very wrong.’
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: ‘While we have not yet finished our inquiry, most airprox reports are technical concerns with no real risk.’ A spokeswoman for Newcastle Airport also stressed that the large majority of airprox incidents are eventually judged to have had no risk involved.
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