Passenger jet in near miss with 'person-shaped' object

The control room at Manchester Airport.Photo: PA

A passenger jet may have come within moments of hitting a person-shaped object as it flew towards Manchester Airport, a new safety report has revealed.

An aviation safety report said a passenger jet over Cheshire was within 300 metres of a paraglider or parachutist.

The Airbus A320 was over Macclesfield on an approach to Manchester Airport when the pilot and the first officer saw what they believed to be a person below a parachute or a paraglider.

The report by the UK Airprox Board, which investigates near misses, said they saw the object for about 3-4 seconds. It added that neither remembers seeing a canopy because they were focused on the person.

Afterwards the crew couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t a person-shaped balloon.

The report described how the object was spotted a few hundred metres in the 11 o’clock position 200-300ft above their aircraft and it passed down the left-hand side of the plane at 100-200m.

There was no time to take avoiding action but the matter was reported to the Manchester controller.

The crew only saw it fleetingly, there was no time to take avoiding action, and they reported that they based their assumptions on it being a person under a canopy, but couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t a person-shaped balloon.

– THE UK AIRPROX BOARD'S REPORT