Two planes came within a hair’s breadth of a catastrophic collision on the runway of Barcelona Airport on Sunday, the moment being caught on HD film.

The footage shows a Boeing 767 from Russian airline UTair making its final approach as it prepares to land. But as the plane is about to touch down an Aerolineas Argentineas Airbus A340 taxis across its path, forcing the Russian pilot to pull off a risky, emergency maneuver and pull up.

The UTair plane stows its landing equipment and performs a ‘go around’ before landing safely.

The heart-stopping moment was caught on camera by budding plane enthusiast Miguel Angel, who described it as “one of the worst experiences I have ever had.” He uploaded the video to YouTube, where it subsequently went viral, racking up over 1 million hits since Saturday.

The Spanish public body that administers most of the airports in Spain, Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (AENA), released a statement in response to the media frenzy triggered by the video.



It says there was never any danger of a collision as there was sufficient space to carry out a landing between the two planes, reports Spanish publication El Mundo.