An Air France Airbus 319 plane and a Russian Tu-95 bomber were on the brink of a midair collision over Moscow!



An imminent collision between an Air France airliner and a Russian bomber was avoided in split seconds while at a few thousand meters altitude in Moscow airspace on March 14, informed Russian daily newspaper Izvestia on Friday.

Shortly after taking off from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, an Airbus A319 passenger aircraft belonging to “Air France – KLM” group and operating flight AF-1645 from Moscow to Paris was just 100 meters away from a Tupolev-95 bomber, told the newspaper a source within the Russian Federal aviation Agency (Rosaviatsia).

The Russian military plane passed very close to the passenger plane whose crew members heard the noise made buy the propellers of the bomber, designed during the Soviet period, according to the same source. Airbus pilots reported subsequently the potential danger caused by this incident, in a note delivered to Rosaviatsia by the French Foreign Ministry.

The minimum safety distance between two aircraft in flight is 1,000 feet (305 meters), writes the daily. The management of the air traffic control in Moscow area concluded, however, that the approach did not pose any risk.

The two planes came close to each other and intersected paths when the Airbus A319 climbed to an altitude of 8,000 meters, while the bomber made ​​a descent. The incident might have been caused by the delay in Airbus take off from Sheremetyevo which occurred at 15.03 local time instead of 14.50 as scheduled, said airport sources quoted by Izvestia.

The general manager of the air traffic control in Moscow region Igor Moisenko told the newspaper that the circumstances and responsibilities will be established by a commission who investigates the incident.