TWO aeroplanes were just 40 feet away from colliding in skies near Brize Norton, a new report has revealed.

The Civil Aviation Authority said a military plane, due to land at RAF Lyneham, and a light aircraft, which had taken off from an airfield in Fairoaks, Gloucestershire, almost collided on June 1 last year.

The light aircraft pilot spotted the C17 military aircraft at about 9.41am and descended rapidly to avoid it, however, the military aircraft also descended.

Rules of the Air dictate the light aircraft pilot had a duty to keep clear of the larger plane.

The report stated: “His (the light aircraft pilot) preferred option was to descend below the other aircraft to keep it fully visual rather than turn, when his wing would have excluded the aircraft from his view.

“Unfortunately, having committed to go beneath, the other aircraft also started to descend and he was then faced with a very fraught situation of steepening his dive to avoid a collision, all in a few seconds at a high closing speed.”

David Learmount, an aviation journalist with Flightglobal.com and former RAF pilot, said pilots flying in that type of airspace, at between 4,000 and 4,500 feet, were responsible for their own actions — not air traffic control.

He said: “The light aircraft pilot should have turned right. It was not a wise decision.

“They were 40 foot away, very, very close indeed. It was a category A incident, which means there was a very high risk of collision. This was a serious incident. There are about one or two a year, some times there are years when there are none of these.

“It definitely would have been fatal for the light aircraft pilot, the bigger aeroplane might have survived, it might not have.”