RAF blamed over airport ‘war games’ near miss

A PASSENGER plane landing at the Western Isles’ main airport got caught-up in war games involving 14 military aircraft, an investigation has found.

The report into the “needless incident” criticised the Royal Air Force and said the exercise should have been aborted once it was clear the flight was about to land.

RAF Tornados were simulating an attack on the airport last July and were told during planning there were no expected civilian aircraft movements. However, the Airprox board – which officially investigates reports of near misses– said yesterday the pilot of a Flybe Saab aircraft had commented: “Those Tornados just got a wee bit too close.”

The report stated: “At 1,100ft on the approach, they saw two grey Tornado aircraft straight ahead and coming towards them. He [the pilot] assessed the risk of collision as being high and reported the incident to the Stornoway approach controller.”

The board said: “Members agreed that since both Tornados had been visual with the Saab, and its pilot saw [both] the Tornados, albeit at a slightly later stage, there had been no risk of collision.

“Having said that, it was agreed unanimously that this had been a needless incident that could have been prevented initially by better planning and communication.

“Accepting these deficiencies, the incident could have been stopped in the air had either the Tornado crew aborted the attack or the approach controller refused the Tornados permission to conduct it as soon as the potential conflict with the airliner became apparent.”

Loganair, which operated the flight for Flybe, said improvements to communications about military and civilian flights had subsequently been agreed at a meeting with the RAF.