The BA service from Glasgow made a sharp right turn and had to "fly round" when the BWIA aircraft taxied on to runway one on its journey to Port of Spain.
Eyewitness, Lytham taxi driver Anthony Draper-Smith, saw the incident yesterday from the car park of the Airport Hotel, where he was waiting for a customer.
He said: "I was absolutely gobsmacked and my mouth went dry. The pilot of the BA flight and his passengers will no doubt have been given a real scare.
"They could only have been a couple of hundred yards apart. He had to take avoiding action.
"If he hadn't he and the other aircraft would have been in danger.
"He would have caught up with the one that was taking off.
"I noticed this BWIA flight taxiing on to the runway and then out of the corner of my eye I saw another plane coming in to land on the same runway.
"Thankfully, nothing happened, except the crew and passengers have shaved a couple of years off their lives."
A spokesman for National Air Traffic Services said that the aircraft were not in danger of collision.
But he confirmed that a BA 737 was told to carry out a fly-around by air traffic control officers as a precaution to "avoid any issues."
A tailwind had brought the aircraft into the airport quicker than expected.
"The two aircraft were a mile-and-a-quarter apart from each other, which is well within separation requirements," said the spokesman.
"He was told to go around to avoid any potential issues, which he did. He carried out a 90 degree turn."
The BWIA flight departed as normal and the BA flight, which was due in at 12.30pm eventually landed at 1.04pm.
The NATS spokesman said the incident had not been logged as a near-miss.
Comments
Login or Register to comment
This type of activity is hardly news worthy, and in fact happens all the time at an airport. I really think you should stick to reporting news, now if the BA flight had piled into the BWIA aircraft, THAT would be a story, it would also be tragic.
Is Manchester really so devoid of news that a go-around is considered something to write about?
Lost count on how many times i've seen go arounds. The Bwi plane just took a bit longer than expected., so inbound pilot opted to go round. seems to me that the reporter has not got a clue into airport operations.
I was watching the A340 start it's take off roll on runway 24 right, when the BA 737 initiated a "go around"! It must have been a least a mile from touch down, not "two hundred yards"
as reported. It's just a standard
ATC procedure in case the A340 had to abort takeoff !
Why do people always over report!
It was northing!v, a heavy A340 a bit slow on the take off roll and caused a BA 737 to go around no panic just a standard go around with a right turn to keep clear of other traffic.
I think I know what im talking about, I was there!
I agree all totally blown out of context
Thomas could you not think of something to say of your own because that looks remarkably like my post from another site
Ian
dosn't it make you think what else they are writing about and totally misleading the public - 'aircraft arrived quiker than expected due to a tailwind' !
what absolute nonsense