RAF tanker plane came within 150ft of a collision
An RAF tanker aircraft and two US Air Force fighters came within yards of a catastrophic mid-air collision when a flight controller was making a phone call, an official report has revealed.
One of the F-15 jets was just 50 yards away as it roared past, according to the pilots of the RAF Voyager plane.
They reported feeling the turbulence of its afterburner as the American pilot engaged his afterburner to avoid colliding.
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The RAF Voyager, file photograph, had just completed refuelling a pair of RAF TyphoonsÂ
The F-15 pilots told controllers they were approaching The Wash, when in fact they were approaching the The Wash Aerial Tactics Area - which is used to refuel aircraftÂ
The tanker pilot reported a US F-15 fighter passed within 50 feet of his aircraft
One immediately reported the incident to flight controllers, saying he and his crew were 'very close to not being here anymore'.
A report by the UK Airprox Board, which investigates near misses, said a misunderstanding between the American pilots and a controller based at Stanwick, Hampshire, led to the incident.
He was said to have been confused when the F-15s stated they would be flying in the Wash area.
This was assumed to refer to the bay between the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts. In fact, they were talking about the Wash Aerial Tactics Area, which extended further north into the refuelling zone where the RAF tanker was flying.
Thinking the aircraft were in different areas, the controller answered a call on a phone that was not his responsibility and became 'embroiled in a distracting and complicated' conversation.
This 'served to further increase his workload and resulted in him focusing on that task rather than on the F15s'.
A trainee air traffic controller reported the incident 'escalated rapidly', leaving her no time to instruct the tanker to take evasive action.
The aircraft passed each other at 16,000ft around ten miles off the coast of Norfolk on January 5 after the Voyager, from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, had refuelled two RAF Typhoons in mid-air.
The plane, which has two pilots and eight crew members, still had its hoses trailing as it flew west.
The F-15s from RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, were flying north towards them. One was above them as it passed from behind. The other was 'not more than 50m away fr om the nose of the Voyager'.
The pilot said: 'Immediately after passing this position this F-15 aggressively pulled the nose up with reheat engaged in what appeared to be late avoiding action.'
The F-15 pilot described selecting 'maximum afterburner' and climbed 5,000ft to avoid a collision.
Radar images suggested the aircraft may have been slightly further apart than 50m.
But the report classed the incident as the most serious Category A near-miss. 'Luck had played a major part' in avoiding disaster, it concluded.
Investigators added they were 'disappointed' the American pilots had not been briefed prior to take-off that refuelling was taking place in the area where they were due to be flying.
This resulted in them flying 'into conflict' with the tanker, which was in a designated refuell ing area â€" one of 14 around the UK.
The report made 15 recommendations to prevent similar incidents, including reviewing airspace names.
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