Tornado jets in near-miss over Scots RAF base

TWO RAF Tornados were seconds from disaster after an air traffic controller put them on a mid-air collision course.

The pilots had to take ‘drastic evasive action’ to avoid crashing at 700ft over RAF Lossiemouth, an official inquiry has revealed.

The report concluded a ‘ misjudgment of sequencing’ by an inexperienced tower controller at the Moray base resulted in the near-miss which was rated as category B – the second highest danger level.

The jet pilots, codenamed Axis 1 and 2, were flying in opposite directions along the Moray coast when danger threatened.

Fortunately they had ‘gone visual’ and, realising they were heading towards each other, one aircraft ‘ ducked’ beneath the other, bringing them within 100ft of each other. The pilots proved

‘No flying is without risk’

to be cool customers, according to the report by the UK Airprox Board, which investigates such incidents.

Cockpit recordings show one of them quipping: ‘Well, this will be i nteresting!’ while his f ellow officer says: ‘I’m not happy with that… I’m going to duck under, he’s way too close.’

One stayed on course as the other rolled, dipping sharply down towards the sea ‘beneath the conflicting traffic’.

An RAF spokesman said last night: ‘Air safety considerations are at the core of all our aviation activity, but no flying is without risk. The RAF takes all reported Airprox incidents very seriously.

‘Local air traffic training and procedures have been amended following a thorough investigation into this incident.’

But Moray Nationalist MP Angus Robertson said: ‘This is particularly worrying. It is likely this incident would have been avoided if these aircraft had been fitted with warning systems we have been demanding for years.’