The Federal Aviation Administration has reportedly launched an investigation into two airplanes nearly colliding last month over a Florida airport.
According to ABC News, the pilot of a single-engine Cessna plane got within 500 feet of a Delta 757 that was taking off from Orlando International Airport.
The Cessna pilot, Malik Clarke, told ABC he had to take "evasive action" to avoid the large commercial airliner.
"I knew that this didn't look right; so immediately, I turned right and I climbed as steeply as I could because the Boeing 757 from Delta has a much higher climb rate than the aircraft that I was flying," Clarke recalled
In the video, the Boeing 757 was in the early stages of ascension after departing the runway; and Clarke's plane nearly occupied the space of the commercial jet — which was presumably carrying a passenger load at the time.
Clarke added, "If I hadn't done that evasive maneuver, it's quite likely there would have been a mid-air collision."
According to Steve Ganyard, an ABC News contributor and former State Department official, the near-miss was "somebody's error to put them in the same part of the sky."
Delta and the FAA are conducting separate investigations of the incident.
In July, a midair collision near Ueberlingen, Germany, resulted in 71 deaths, including many Russian teenagers as passengers.
According to reports, a Russian Tupolev 154 aircraft and Boeing 757 cargo plane slammed into each other in the air. There were no survivors.
The children on board the Russian plane were reportedly in a party heading for a holiday in Barcelona, Spain.
According to Forbes.com, of the 1,525 passenger jet-airliner accidents that occurred from 1959 to 2015 worldwide, there were 29,165 on-board fatalities (including crew and passengers) and 800 innocent bystanders.
Also, during that span, there were 1,918 total accidents involving jet airliners of all types (including cargo), killing 29,646 aboard and 1,216 on the ground.
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