Alert air traffic controller averts collision at Ben Gurion Airport
EasyJet flight to Nice begins takeoff before receiving all-clear — right into the path of a corporate jet on approach to land
A potentially disastrous collision between two planes at Ben Gurion International Airport was prevented on Tuesday when an alert air traffic controller called back an easyJet plane that was about to take off without receiving permission from the tower.
According to airport officials, the plane, an Airbus A320 passenger jet headed for Nice, France, began accelerating down the runway before receiving the all-clear to do so from the control tower.
The controller noticed the problem in time to stop the departing plane, preventing a possible high-speed collision on the ground.
In March, a German plane hit an El Al jet on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport. There were no injuries, and all of the passengers were evacuated back to the airport terminal.
The Berlin-bound Germania Boeing 737 was reversing out of its parking place en route to takeoff when it clipped the tail of the El Al 767, set to fly to Rome. The El Al plane had already moved away from its passenger entry sleeve and had come to a stop. The damage to the El Al plane was estimated to cost “millions of shekels” to repair, according to The Marker business daily.