Chilling footage shows how an easyJet plane came within mere feet of a horror crash after another airliner flew directly over it before landing on Sunday.
A reconstruction by flight tracking website Flightradar shows how the incoming Tunisian Nouvelair jet zoomed just 10ft over the grounded easyJet aircraft in Nice Cote d’Azur Airport, before performing a go-around.
A separate video shows how the descending Nouvelair plane was forced to abort the landing as the two jets came incredibly close.
Each airline was carrying around 150 passengers each at the time. No injuries were reported.
The easyJet plane was just seconds away from take-off at the time of the incident, which unfolded after the Novelair plane tried to land at the wrong runway, according to local media.
Passengers on-board the airbus described hearing a loud roar as they waited in their seats to depart.
The noise came from the incoming Nouvelair jet – which was forced to apply full power to avoid colliding with the aircraft and causing mass casualties.
A couple onboard the Nouvelair flight who said they ‘almost died’ detailed the horrifying near-miss in a dramatic video which they shared on social platform TikTok.
They described how the pilot suddenly pushed the engines to ‘full throttle’ just seconds before landing, leaving those onboard fearing for their lives.
‘Moral of the story? A quiet flight can turn into an episode of Man vs Destiny in two seconds. Fortunately, last night, it was the pilot who saved the game’, they said.
Sunday’s incident is thought to be one of the closest near misses between two passenger jets.
Heavy rain was falling when the two nearly collided at around 11.30pm on Sunday.
French transport minister Philippe Tabarot confirmed a potentially catastrophic collision between the two airlines was ‘narrowly avoided’.
The French Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, or Office of Investigation and Analysis, it has launched an investigation into the ‘serious incident’.
The pilots of the Tunisian Nouvelair jet came under fire by airport management – who blamed them for the near miss.
They said: ‘It seems that the Nouvelair pilot made an error.’
Pilots of the easyJet flight 4706 to Nantes were so shaken by the incident that they chose not to continue the flight, leaving passengers stranded.
Érard, 29, a passenger onboard the easyJet flight, told local newspaper Le Figaro that the captain was in a ‘visible state of shock’ when he left the flight deck.
He said the captain had informed passengers that a crash had been avoided by three metres and that it was the fault of the other airliner.
He added: ‘The plane was about to take off when we heard an enormous noise of engines right alongside.’
Both planes were grounded as investigators took flight recordings. The BEA declared it a ‘serious incident’
The agency warned against any premature conclusions however, an official confirmed to French media that the aircraft had approached the wrong runway, as previously speculated.
A spokesperson for EasyJet said: ‘The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority and in line with procedures, we are fully cooperating with the safety investigation that has been launched in order to understand what happened.’
Nouvelair have been contacted for comment.
