Passenger jets in near-miss over Essex

TWO PASSENGER jets came within a mile of colliding over the English countryside, safety experts reported yesterday.

Errors by air traffic controllers and pilots were blamed for the near- miss between a Boeing 747 and a Gulfstream IV in July last year.

A report by the Department of Transport's Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) revealed that the Japan Airlines Boeing, carrying 268 passengers and 20 crew, and a Gulfstream private jet, owned by the ITT Corporation, were at one point a mile apart horizontally, and 100ft vertically. A few seconds later, the vertical separation had risen to 200ft but the horizontal distance narrowed to just three-quarters of a mile.

The AAIB said misses of this type, when the planes had been so close, were rare. Aircraft should be 1,000ft apart in height, but if that gap is smaller they should be three miles apart horizontally.

The near-miss took place at about 12,000ft above Lambourne in Essex. The report found that the Boeing, en route to Heathrow, was not descending at the minimum required rate of 500ft per minute and had not reported its correct speed to the controllers. It added that the controller who gave authority for the Gulfstream - carrying three passengers and two crew from Sardinia to Luton - to descend did not apply the correct procedure.

The AAIB said traffic conditions were light and the incident did not occur because of an "overload situation".

The Civil Aviation Authority, parent body of the National Air Traffic Control Services (Nats), said yesterday it accepted all five of the report's safety recommendations. A spokesman said: "UK airspace is amongst the safest in the world and Nats is doing everything it can to maintain and improve that. The fact that we have accepted these recommendations shows we are committed to maintaining our safety record."

The CAA added that one of the reasons it had lobbied the Government for partial privatisation of Nats was because it did not have sufficient resources in the public sector. "We are looking at a public-private partnership to give us the resources we need to develop the UK air traffic control services to meet future traffic growth."