Two passenger planes had a terrifying near miss on a runway in France over the weekend, according to multiple reports.
The incident occurred at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport on Sunday night. USA TODAY reports that easyJet flight 4706 was on a runway preparing for takeoff when an inbound craft from Tunisian-based airline Nouvelair passed dangerously close during its descent.
“We were lined up on the runway, ready to take off. Suddenly, we heard a huge noise in the cabin and felt strong vibrations,” said Sacha, one of the easyJet passengers, to local outlet Nice-Matin. “The Nouvelair plane passed over us, about three meters (approximately 10 feet) away according to the pilots.”
The harrowing encounter led to the cancelation of the easyJet flight until the following day.
Why did this happen?
According to FlightRadar24, the reason for the close call appears to be some confusion regarding what runway the incoming Nouvelair plane was supposed to use.
“Departing traffic was using Runway 04R all evening, while arriving traffic to Nice was using Runway 04L exclusively. Nouvelair flight 586 lined up with 04R on its first approach,” FlightRadar24 said.
Air traffic control was unable to correct the runway assignment at first, but after the incident, directed the Nouvelair to do a go-around and use Runway04L, where it landed safely 16 minutes later.
What’s next?
The easyJet aircraft was eventually able to make its scheduled trip to France’s Nantes Atlantique Airport on Monday, according to the company’s official website.
“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,” an easyJet spokesperson told USA TODAY.
France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety announced in a tweet Monday it had sent four investigators to Nice Côte d’Azur Airport to look into the matter.
