Last update - 00:00 08/02/2007
Airports Authority confirms near-miss at Ben-Gurion Airport
By Zohar Blumenkrantz, Haaretz Correspondent and The Associated Press
A mid-air collision between Israeli and Spanish airliners at Ben-Gurion International Airport was averted before sundown Thursday, an Airports Authority official said.
An El Al plane was approaching the runway for landing when an Iberian Airlines plane suddenly turned into its path, Arieh Gilad told Channel 2 television.
He said the El Al airliner managed to avoid the other plane when they were around two kilometers apart, 20 seconds from a collision.
The vice president of operations at El Al, Captain Lior Yavor, said that the incident took place at 14:45 Thursday afternoon, when an El Al Boeing 767 from Toronto carrying 170 passengers was coming in to land.
The El Al pilot spotted the Iberia Airlines plane, which was next in the queue to land, reducing its altitude and approaching his jet. The El Al pilots turned their plane to the right, to put some distance between the two aircraft.
Yavor said that the incident was caused by a "serious error on the part of the Iberia pilot." Even so, he added, "there was at no time any danger to the passengers, crew or plane."