Plane narrowly avoids collision

2006-04-04 13:01

Athens - An Olympic Airlines flight from Athens to Duesseldorf with 116 passengers on board on Tuesday narrowly avoided a collision with two Greek fighter aircraft in its flight path, officials said.

"The pilot received a collision avoidance alert involving two unidentified aircraft, it was an incident that required immediate action," OA spokesperson Angelike Gypaki told AFP.

"These were Greek airforce planes, we are currently trying to confirm their details," Greek airforce spokesman Colonel Yiannis Papageorgiou said.

An air stewardess was slightly injured and two passengers suffered shock in the incident, which occurred as the OA Boeing 737-300 had begun its approach towards the flight's stopover point at Makedonia Airport in the northern Greek city of Salonika, Gypaki said.

At the time of the incident, visibility was limited by heavy cloud cover, Papageorgiou said.

The OA plane will remain at Makedonia Airport until a replacement air hostess can be found, Gypaki said.

- AFP