Jets safe after near-collision drama

A Swiss airliner on a trans-Atlantic flight and a plane belonging to the Dutch company KLM came close to colliding over France, Swiss International Air Lines said today.

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

The incident happened when the Swiss airliner coming from New York and the Dutch plane flying from Geneva to Amsterdam came within 1,000 feet of each other at cruising altitude, a spokesman for Swiss International Air Lines said.

Jean-Claude Donzel said the Swiss and KLM planes were “in horizontal proximity” under the responsibility of air traffic controllers in Reims, France.

The Swiss plane, flight LX17, was en route to Zurich from New York’s Kennedy airport with 137 passengers and a crew of 11. The plane was flying over the northern French city of Reims when the incident occurred, said a statement from the company.

“The onboard warning system indicated the proximity of another aircraft. The Swiss crew followed the system’s instructions and put distance between the two aircraft.”

It was not immediately clear whether the incident was linked to a strike by Paris air traffic controllers that disrupted travel in and out of the French capital for three days.

Swiss said French authorities were investigating how it was possible for the two aircraft to come close to one another. The Swiss flight landed on schedule in Zurich, it added.

Mike Baas, a spokesman for KLM, said there were 75 passengers and five crew members aboard the Dutch plane, flight KL1924.

“The autopilot indicated that intervention was needed and at the same time the KLM pilot saw the Swiss plane and made a sharp left turn and averted a collision.

A midair 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.