Near miss! Motorised paraglider narrow avoids crashing into packed EasyJet passenger plane by only 150ft... and air traffic control failed to spot it
- The Airbus A319 missed the flying-machine by only 150ft
- Pilot relayed the incident to air traffic control
- Kits to build the flying machines can be purchased online for around £1,500
- Aspiring pilots can start taking to the skies without any training
By LUKE GARRATT
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An airliner that was coming in to land had a near miss in mid-air with a motorised parachutist at 2,000ft about the ground.
The Airbus A319 missed the flying-machine by only 150ft, causing the pilot to see the parachute canopy flash by the cockpit of the plane.
A source told the Sunday Mirror the pilot relayed the incident to air traffic control, saying: 'We've just had some kind of a paraglider passing very, very close to our left-hand side.'
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The EasyJet plane saw the parachute pass across its bow
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The motorised parachutes can be bought as kits for around £1,500 and flown by people with no training
An investigation has been launched to crack down on the motorised parachutes and their pilots, which cannot be detected by radar systems because they travel too slowly.
Kits to build the flying machines can be purchased online for around £1,500, and wannabe pilots can start taking to the skies without any training.
Air traffic controllers were unable to warn the pilot who was flying the plane from Newquay, Cornwall.
Experts said: 'He (the pilot) could not have taken avoiding action.'
A recommendation to investigate the motorised parachutes was floated last July, when there had been another near miss between a plane and a glider.
Steve Landells, of the British Association of Airline Pilots told the Sunday Mirror: 'Most general aviation pilots will do the sensible thing and get the right training.
'But there are some who launch into it without any thought.'
Almost colliding with a plane while you're flying is one thing, but last year a pair of people filming on what they thought was a quiet runway had a near miss with a bi-plane.
They were performing and filming some motorcycle stunts, when the light aircraft appeared to attempt to land, before swerving to the side.
Footage showed the plane nearly hit the bike, swerving and avoiding it, almost hitting the woman filming, and taking off again.
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Flying: The man hardly has time to react as the speeding vehicle whizzes past him
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Hold tight: After first missing the bike-rider the plane is on course to collide with the video camera operator
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Inches: The footage reveals how close the plane comes to colliding with the unnamed woman
The plane reportedly missed the woman filming by only two feet, as she utters a startled 'oh my god...holy sh**.'
Another near-miss saw saw a Heathrow-bound airliner carrying 232 passengers came within 200ft and seconds of a mid-air collision with a business jet over London, an official report revealed yesterday.
The drama happened on July 27 last year after a German-owned Cessna Citation business jet with two crew and one passenger took off from London City Airport, initially heading west.
The control tower told the pilot to climb to 3,000ft, but he replied that he would be going to 4,000ft. This so-called 'readback' mistake was not picked up by the London City controller.
There was 'confusion between the two pilots' as the aircraft pitched nose-down before control was recovered in the skies west of Norwich, an AAIB report said.
Meanwhile a Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 airliner carrying 232 passengers and 16 crew, with a trainee pilot at the controls, was heading south towards the Thames, having been cleared to descend from 4,900ft to 4,000ft as it prepared to land at Heathrow.
It failed to follow commands from three automatic collision-avoidance warnings, which alert pilots to danger when other aircraft get too close.
As a result, at 2.38pm the planes were flying almost head-on at a closing speed of around 700mph when they crossed paths with a difference in height of between 100ft and 200ft at 4,000ft above the 2012 Olympics site at Stratford.
The business jet crew saw the airliner 'in time to take effective avoiding action'. But the pilot of the passenger jet did not see the other plane.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560452/Near-miss-A-motorised-paraglider-misses-EasyJet-passenger-plane-150ft.html#ixzz2tXRS6in6
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