DETAILS of a near air miss involving a tourist flight on its way to Cyprus were disclosed yesterday in an accident report.
A missed call to climb to a higher altitude led to the mid-air “near disaster” involving an F-15 military fighter and a Britannia holiday jet on its way to Paphos carrying 234 passengers.
Reports in the UK said it was one of the most serious UK near misses recorded. The American F-15, which failed to hear the climb instruction, passed so close to the Boeing 757 that the jet was caught up in its wake turbulence.
At their closest, the two aircraft were separated by less than the minimal range – 115 metres – that can be detected by radar, the accident report said.
It said that the F-15 was one of two from the US air force base at Lakenheath in Suffolk involved in an exercise over Nothamptonshire on the morning of November 22 last year.
Some confusion arose, and one of the F-15s missed two transmissions to climb higher taking it close to the jet. The crew of the Britannia, which had taken off from Birmingham for Cyprus had been informed of the first F-15 but suddenly became aware of another aircraft to their left at very close range.
“The aircraft passed rapidly across the Boeing’s nose and disappeared down their right side,” the report said. It was only after the Boeing’s crew filed a near miss report that the F-15 crewman realised what had happened.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
