By James Simons-
Two U.S fighter jets and an RAF tanker aircraft came within seconds of a mid-air crash, the eye of media.com have heard.
One of the US F-15s flew as close as 160ft before miraculously avoiding a collision in what has been described as a ”category A risk”.
The tanker pilot said he felt turbulence from the F15 flying at 402 mph, but the near-miss was blamed on a military air traffic controller being distracted by a phone call.
The scary incident occurred last January at a height of 16,000ft, about 10 miles off the coast of north Norfolk, after the Voyager from RAF Brize Norton had refueled two RAF Typhoons in mid-air.
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A report found that a military air traffic controller based at Swanwick, Hampshire, misconstruedthe flight path of the F15 pilots, and thought they were flying south in the geographic Wash area.
But the US crews from RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, were referring to the Wash Aerial Tactics Area (ATA) further north, which was also the refuelling area where the tanker was flying. One of the fighter jets- an F15-avoided a right turn, while maintaining FL160, one of the contacts passed above and behind the tanker.
The second fighter jet was witnessed to pass through the 12 o’clock, co-level, estimated about 50 metres away from the nose of the Voyagers
Immediately after passing though this position, this F15 aggressively pulled the nose up with reheat engaged in what appeared to be late avoiding action.
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The Voyager crew not only saw the engines in reheat but could hear the distinctive roar and
light turbulence was experienced as the Voyager flew through the F15 jet wash.
A report said the controller was further distracted after he “answered a landline that was not his responsibility, and had became embroiled in a distracting and complicated” call.
It added this “served to further increase his workload and resulted in him focusing on that task rather than on the F15s. A subsequent investigation concluded that pilots of the F15s had been flying visually at the time and had failed to spot the Voyager on their radar.
The UK Airprox Board concluded that because the F15 pilot was unaware of the Voyag
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