After a day scrambling for excuses and revising figures, Swiss air traffic control officials tonight conceded that they told the pilot of a Russian charter jet to reduce altitude and avert a mid-air collision less than one minute before it smashed into an oncoming cargo plane.

Scores of people were feared dead today after a Tupolev 154 and a Boeing 757 airliner collided over the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.