Mid-air crash averted off coast

A MID-AIR collision involving two large passenger aircraft was narrowly avoided over the Atlantic Ocean off Ireland last November, it has emerged.

An Air France Boeing 747 bound for Paris from Havana and an Airtours International Airbus travelling from Gatwick to Cancun, Mexico were less than 60 seconds away from a disastrous head-on crash with over 500 passengers on board.

The near-miss took place just outside Irish airspace about 380 miles west-southwest of Shannon at around 11am on November 10 last year.