Near miss at BRU

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » 12 Aug 2004, 09:43

A military plane, with minister of defence André Flahaut as passenger, got involved in a near miss at BRU.

The plane wanted to touch down at the military airport of Melsbroek, when suddenly another airplane took off on the same runway. The pilot of the military jet had to break off landing in order to avoid a collision.

Twenty minutes later, the jet landed safely.

Source: vrtnieuws.net

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 12 Aug 2004, 12:47

according to Het Nieuwsblad (a Flemish newspaper), ATC has to be blamed. This newspaper says it happened at the very last moment, but it's not sure they mean "final approach". This article doens't mention that the other plane was about to take off, like the VRT does: it says "crossing the r/way". Perhaps the military pilot saw a very biiig jumbo, who was just going to park at Brucargo ?

Minister Flahaut en stafchef August Van Daele maakten gisterenavond bij hun terugkeer uit Athene bijna een noodlanding op Zaventem. Het militaire vliegtuig brak zijn landing op het allerlaatste moment af omdat een ander toestel plots de landingsbaan kruiste. De piloot kon weer stijgen en het andere vliegtuig ontwijken. Pas na de tweede poging kon de militaire jet landen. Volgens de luchtmacht werd de landing alleen uit veiligheidsoverwegingen afgebroken en was het wellicht niet eens tot een crash gekomen. Het incident zou te wijten zijn aan een onoplettendheid in de controletoren.

Post by **sn26567** » 12 Aug 2004, 13:11

Couldn't he take Hellas Jet, like everybody else in the Olympic team?

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » 12 Aug 2004, 13:26

sn26567 wrote:Couldn't he take Hellas Jet, like everybody else in the Olympic team?

then I'll have to buy at least 2 tickets

Edit: woops, wrong person in mind (Michel

)

Fab99 · Post by **Fab99** » 12 Aug 2004, 13:27

Couldn't he take Hélas Jet??? I find it a shame OUR olympic team not flying a OO registered aircraft to the games!!!

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » 12 Aug 2004, 13:50

If I remember will, I think they checked in at a SN Brussels desk. Is that possible?

Glider · Post by **Glider** » 12 Aug 2004, 14:09

Jup, it's possible they checked in there. T4-flights are code-share with SNBA.

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 12 Aug 2004, 14:57

Yes, check-in was at SN-counters because the SN-flights to ATH are operated by HellasJet (T4), mostly with A320's. Other possibilities are Virgin Express and of course OA. On a normal Wednesday, there are some 5 flights to ATH.

The problem is that it wasn't just the minister who "had" to go to Athens: VRT, VTM, VT4, RTBf and RTL were all invited beacuse it's important that our nation knows that ministers do take their job seriously. It's not for fun that the minister was going to Athens, you know!

Meanwhile, it's becoming clear to me what happened: the honourable minister was sitting on the jump seat, as he has to know what's happening. When the plane was in final, he saw the nice (but impressive) CX 747-400F taxiing towards Brucargo. The minister then shouted "stop !", but as that wasn't possible, the pilot decided to abort the landing and to calm down the minister first.