Planes' near miss

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), June 16, 2006

Byline: By Paul McMillan

Aircraft in collision alert

Details of another near miss between a passenger plane and a military aircraft have emerged weeks after new no-fly zones were announced at Newcastle Airport.

An Eastern Airways Saab 2000 craft and an RAF Tornado sparked the alert 25 miles north of the airport shortly after 11am on May 3.

The propeller plane was flying from Newcastle to Aberdeen and still under Tyneside's air traffic control when it came into contact with the military jet at 16,000ft.

Investigators from the independent UK Airprox Board are examining the incident.

A spokeswoman for Newcastle Airport said: "The military aircraft was a Tornado and he filed the Airprox report. The Saab was an Eastern Airways plane on route to Aberdeen which was 25 miles north of the airport at about 16,000ft."

Concerned by the number of near misses between commercial and military planes the Civil Aviation Authority has set up new safety zones to the west and east of the airport. The new zones have been set up around Hexham and the Derwent Reservoir, and on a band running from just north of Durham City to the North Sea off Tynemouth.

From July 6, military planes entering those zones will have to liaise with air traffic controllers after their operations in uncontrolled airspace, where the only safety measures for pilots to see other aircraft, proved unsafe.

Newcastle Airport's air traffic services manager Chris Davis has welcomed the new zones. He said: "These new areas have been devised in conjunction with the MoD so civil aircraft which fly in and out of the airport are safeguarded from military planes.

"The controlled airspace around the airport has been the same for 20 years, and with all the increase in traffic we've had, it's now what we call dysfunctional. The controlled area we have is too small to cope with current operations, and we wanted new capacity to cope with the traffic we have now and what we will have in the future."

In March last year, a Saab 2000 on its way from Newcastle to Aberdeen was in a near miss with a military aircraft, 26,000ft over St Abb's Head, Scotland.

An RAF spokeswoman said: "We are aware of the incident. An investigation is being carried out by the Airprox Board, until that is complete it would be inappropriate to comment further."

An Eastern Airways spokesman, said: "Our aircraft was under Newcastle radar control after take-off from Newcastle and had reached 16,000ft when air traffic control instructed our pilot to alter his directional heading due to a military aircraft in the vicinity.

"He followed ATC's instructions to ensure there was no risk whatsoever of a collision. The Saab 2000 had 29 passengers and three crew onboard and continued its journey to Aberdeen."