Airliners in near miss over northern France

Two airliners narrowly missed colliding over France today, officials said.

A Swiss airliner on a transatlantic flight and a KLM jet were over the northern city of Reims when the incident occurred at about 6:45am Irish time.

“Thanks to the swift response of both crews and the onboard warning systems, the incident passed without consequence,” Swiss said in a statement.

Swiss said the onboard warning system on its flight LX17, en route to Zurich from New York’s Kennedy airport, “indicated the proximity of another aircraft. The Swiss crew followed the system’s instructions and put distance between the two aircraft.

“The French authorities are investigating how it was possible for the two aircraft to come close to one another.”

A mid-air collision in July 2002 between a Russian plane and a cargo plane killed 71 people – most of them children – when the planes came down over southern Germany. The planes were in airspace handled by Swiss air traffic controllers.