Prince Charles' plane in near miss

A Royal Air Force jet carrying Britain's Prince Charles nearly crashed into a commercial airliner with 186 passengers in an air traffic control mixup.

The Civil Aviation Authority said the military jet, carrying Charles to Spain for a memorial service for victims of the Madrid train bombing, got within a few hundred yards of an Airbus 321, the Times of London reported Friday.

The near miss occurred at 11,500 feet as the Airbus was on final approach to London's Heathrow airport. Neither flight crew was blamed in the incident.

"Both planes were lucky not to have collided. It was very hairy to say the least," a CAA source told the Sun newspaper.

Controllers typically keep passenger aircraft 1,000 feet apart vertically with a 5-mile horizontal gap.

Fonte: The Washington Times Online - 16/07/2004