Three near misses over North East skies

May 19 2008 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

AIRPORT bosses are awaiting the results of a probe into how two Boeing 737 passenger planes almost collided over Newcastle as one of three potential near misses in less than a month.

Aviation experts are checking flight details from six aircraft after the "unusually frequent" series of incidents from late March to early April.

Last night safety groups warned of an increased risk of "panic in the skies" as regional airports continue their growth.

The UK Airprox Board is investigating the near misses – known as airprox incidents – in a bid to discover how close Tyneside came to witnessing a disaster.

The first incident, on March 19, saw a Embraer 145 and a Boeing come close to hitting 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, and both were being directed by Scottish Area Control Centre.

Just two days later staff at Newcastle Airport had a panic on their hands as two Boeing 737s came close to smashing into each other 3,500ft in the air.

The two planes, which between them can carry more than 200 passengers, came too close for comfort en route to Newcastle Airport on March 21 at 3.10pm. They were five miles east of the airport when the incident happened.

And on April 8 two more aircraft, this time 20 miles north of the airport, were logged as coming dangerously close.

On the third occasion a military aircraft came too close to a 50-seater Saab 200 en route to Aberdeen.

Airport bosses have played down the risk to passengers, but experts have warned crowded skies are seeing more and more near misses reported.

The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety said it would be waiting to see the results of the inquiries.

Rob Gifford, director of the group, said: "I’m 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 real risk involved.