Reports have emerged of a near miss between two Boeing 747 aircraft over Scotland which could have been one of the worst disasters in aviation history.
The two planes, with 1,000 passengers on board, almost collided after all four pilots failed to follow instructions from air traffic control, who had spotted they were getting dangerously close.
When the air traffic controller told one aircraft to go left and the other right, they both did the opposite and ended up just 100ft from crashing.
Disaster was only averted when the pilots physically saw each other’s planes and took action, one climbing in altitude while the other one dived.
The incident, which is still being investigated, happened on June 23.
It has only just come to light in a report by the UK Airprox Board, which looks into aviation incidents.
The report, which did not identify the airlines involved, said it is still unclear what happened, but said pilots might have been caught off guard.
“Expecting only routine information to be transmitted at that time, they may have been perplexed by the avoiding action information and instinctively responded without properly assimilating it,” it said.
