Near miss blamed on human error

The air traffic controller also trained other colleagues

A near miss in which two jets carrying hundreds of passengers nearly collided on a runway has been blamed on human error by an air traffic controller.

A catastrophe was averted at Manchester Airport after a pilot aborted his take off after reaching more than 100mph.

The controller said he "forgot" he had told one plane to take off just before clearing a recently-landed flight to cross the runway on 29 February, 2004.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) also blamed airport procedures.

It said systems which should have made the controller aware of his mistake "were not effective".

The incident occurred following a human error by a controller AAIB

The near miss involved a MyTravel Airways Airbus A321, carrying 220 passengers, and a Ryanair Boeing 737, carrying 122 passengers, which had just arrived at the airport.

Only "prompt action" by the Airbus captain avoided a crash.

An investigation is currently continuing into a runway crash at the airport which happened last week.

The AAIB said the controller had qualified in 1996 and had been at Manchester since 2000 and was employed as an "On the Job Training Instructor".

The report said: "The incident occurred following a human error by a controller.

Distracted controller

"The controller stated that he had forgotten that he had given take off clearance to G-SMTJ (the Airbus) when he subsequently cleared EI-CJI (the Boeing) to cross the runway."

It added that other things were going on that could have distracted the controller and said it was "highly likely that the controller lost situational awareness at a critical time".

When he saw the Airbus preparing to take off "his initial thought was that it had taken off without clearance".

The AAIB said: "While procedures are continually evaluated to minimise the opportunities for error, human errors will occur.

"The defence against this incident becoming an accident was the use of effective situation awareness by a flight crew.

"While the risk of a collision was averted, the incident shows the importance of all crews and controllers maintaining maximum situational awareness at all times."

The report said that the National Air Traffic Services and Manchester air traffic control have since taken "appropriate measures to review, standardise and improve their procedures".