Two planes had a nerve-shredding near miss shortly after take-off from Los Angeles early on Saturday morning, according to reports.
One aircraft belonging to Air France and another under American Airlines came within 400 feet of each other – and only avoided catastrophe thanks to quick thinking from air traffic control.
According to air travel news website Simple Flying, American Airlines flight 1660 was told to stay at 2,000 feet shortly after leaving LA at around 12.15am.
The request from air traffic control was intended to allow Air France flight 28 to turn and start heading for cruising altitude.
But the Air France plane made an unauthorised turn which meant the flight paths of the two craft were in conflict, Simple Flying reported.
Turbine Traveller, an aviation news account on X, said air traffic control ‘immediately intervened’ and ensured the two flights turned away from each other.
At the closest point, they are thought to have come within 400ft vertically of each other – alarmingly close.
Such incidents are known as ‘loss of separation events’.
The American Airlines flight was able to continue safely to its destination airport at Dallas/Fort Worth in Texas.
Meanwhile, the Air France plane also continued to its destination of Papeete on the island of Tahiti without any reported injuries or harm to anyone on board.
It is unknown how many people were on board the planes at the time, but the two models of plane involved – an Airbus A350 and an Airbus A321 – could hold more than 500 passengers between them.
Another notable ‘loss of separation event’ in the US took place in August, when Donald Trump’s presidential helicopter Marine One came too close to a passenger jet leaving Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington DC.
Investigators later said radio problems that contributed to the incident had been caused by building work at the White House.
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