Two Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) planes narrowly avoided a disaster that could have cost hundreds of human lives.

As per Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sources, due to a technical error in the air traffic controller system, two PIA planes nearly escaped a head-on collision mid-air thanks to a timely response from the pilots.

The two PIA flights, PK-352 and PK-786, came very close to each other and could have collided, but a swift maneuver averted the crash.

As per details, PIA’s flight PK-352 was headed to Islamabad while PK-785 flight was moving towards London from Islamabad. Due to the air traffic controller’s mistake, both planes were given the same flight level, which brought them head-on above the airspace of Cherat. Thanks to the quick response from the pilots, a disaster was averted.

However, the incident hasn’t gone unnoticed among the higher-ups of the aviation authority, which has set up a high-level inquiry into the incident.

This is the second such incident in the past three months, as two passenger planes narrowly escaped a mid-air collision in Karachi’s airspace.

In that incident, a PIA flight en route from Islamabad to Karachi was awarded the altitude of 40,000 feet, whereas a foreign airliner was at 35,000 feet. The two planes were less than five miles apart, the sources said.