We constantly hear about close calls in aviation. I think it’s easy to become desensitized to these, and wonder which are actually dangerous, and which are just a bit too close for comfort.
Along those lines, yesterday we saw what’s easily one of the closest calls we’ve seen in a very long time, as reported by The Aviation Herald. Data suggests that TWO PLANES CAME WITHIN 10 FEET OF ONE ANOTHER ON THE RUNWAY!!!
In this post:
Catastrophe narrowly avoided at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport
This incident happened very late at night (around 11:50PM local time) on Sunday, September 21, 2025, at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport (NCE), in the south of France. It involves two aircraft:
- A Nouvelair Airbus A320 with the registration code TS-INP was performing flight BJ586 from Tunis (TUN)
- An EasyJet Airbus A320 with the registration code OE-IJZ was performing flight U24706 to Nantes (NTE)
The Nouvelair A320 had been cleared to land on runway 4L, while the EasyJet Airbus A320 had been cleared to line up and wait on runway 4R, and was just taxiing into position. Just to clarify, those two runways are parallel to one another (at a heading of roughly 40 degrees), with 4L being to the left, and 4R being to the right.
All of that sounds fine, except for one little issue. The Nouvelair pilots (accidentally?) lined up their plane with runway 4R instead of runway 4L, with the former runway being occupied by the EasyJet plane.
According to ADS-B data, the Nouvelair A320 crossed the runway threshold at 50 feet above ground level, and only initiated a go around six seconds later. Just to be clear, an A320 has a tail height of over 41 feet, so the planes literally missed one another by a matter of feet. This isn’t some “oh it was sort of a close call” situation. Instead, this was a split second from being one of the worst aviation disasters that we’ve seen in a very long time.
The EasyJet plane subsequently exited the runway and returned to the apron, and the flight was ultimately canceled. Meanwhile the Nouvelair plane performed a go around, and then landed without incident, roughly 12 minutes later.
EasyJet passengers report hearing a loud noise and strong vibrations in the plane, and the EasyJet captain also reportedly informed passengers that the other A320 had overflown them by three meters.
Talk about a narrowly avoided disaster!
There were likely around 10 feet of separation between the two planes on the runway, and it can’t be overstated what a close call this was.
Presumably the investigation here will center around why the Nouvelair pilots got their runway assignment wrong, since this is a pretty major screw-up. There are some situations where you can kind of understand how there could be confusion, like if there’s a taxiway on one side that could somehow be mistaken for a runway.
But they were cleared to land on the left runway, and they landed on the right runway, where there’s nothing (not even a taxiway) to the right. This seems like really sloppy piloting.
I assume that because it was dark outside, the Nouvelair pilots somehow didn’t see the EasyJet plane on the runway, and thought that the lights of the plane were actually runway lights, or something. During landing, pilots will often be looking a long way down the runway as they prepare to flare, so I can sort of see how they could miss the plane on the runway.
This isn’t the first time that we’ve seen a very close call on a runway at night, and it likely won’t be the last. But my goodness, this has to set a new record in terms of just how close of a call it was.
I’ve seen some people ask why the EasyJet flight would’ve been canceled after this incident. While nothing has officially been announced, it’s possible the plane needed to be inspected after such a close call. For that matter, I’d fully support the pilots just not feeling like flying anymore, and being too rattled by the closest call they’ve had in their career.
Bottom line
Two Airbus A320s had a very close call at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport. An EasyJet A320 was supposed to line up on one runway, while a Nouvelair A320 was supposed to land on another runway. However, a mixup with the Nouvelair pilots caused them to instead line up on the occupied runway, causing them to overly the other plane by a matter of meters.
This is a next-level close call, and I’m curious to see what an investigation reveals…
What do you make of this close call?
In the French news there are reports one of the Easyjet pilots had visible tears and both were in a state of shock. Hence, the decision to cancel.
What some remember as a rear orifice going ‘half crown-sixpence’ moment.
Thankfully all on board both aircraft walked away and the emergency services were not required.
"the pilots just not feeling like flying anymore" - may well have been one pilot to the other "You are suffering from shock - you are not in a fit state to fly".
Training of pilots, and others, should make them able to keep calm through a crisis.
But when the crisis situation is resolved (and training is not the same as real risk) many people find that the body is temporarily messed...
"the pilots just not feeling like flying anymore" - may well have been one pilot to the other "You are suffering from shock - you are not in a fit state to fly".
Training of pilots, and others, should make them able to keep calm through a crisis.
But when the crisis situation is resolved (and training is not the same as real risk) many people find that the body is temporarily messed up by (medics correct me) the abrupt reduction in adrenaline.
A few years ago a driver crossed the median line and I saw the headlights coming towards me - she told the police I took evasive action to turn a head-on collision into a side-on scrape, but I have no recollection of that one second, and while I wasn't emotionally distraught, I didn't drive (or use other power tools) for a few days.
Having suffered shock before from a different road incident, I recognised the feeling of detachment - it's as though one needs time to retune the connections so that sensory inputs will lead to correct actions.
The first time you suffer shock, trust other people who tell you to wait to do things.
in US LCC news, Spirit has just announced it is furloughing 1/3 of its FAs or about 1800 of them.
I’m trying to understand your headline and failing miserably. This seems like another of your Both Sides things where it’s clear that one party is at fault but you show concern for that party as well as the victim, like when an airline screws over your readers and you show understanding for the airline.
What would be interesting would be if you were driving and got t-boned due to no fault of yours but a...
I’m trying to understand your headline and failing miserably. This seems like another of your Both Sides things where it’s clear that one party is at fault but you show concern for that party as well as the victim, like when an airline screws over your readers and you show understanding for the airline.
What would be interesting would be if you were driving and got t-boned due to no fault of yours but a third party presented it as both parties being at fault. I don’t wish this on you but perhaps the analogy will illustrate how you’re presenting things. In this case, Easyjet did everything right. Call out the company that caused the problem.
Good reason to avoid flying at night.
Surely ATC bears some responsibility here for not seeing the plane was lined up for the wrong runway and instructing to go around. Obviously the pilot is in control, but ATC is a critical check on these things and we would see more mistakes like this were it not for ATC.
This is similair to the Air Canada SFO incident although they lined up on a taxiway on their approach. Afterwards changes were made for ATC to only issue instrument approaches at night not visual approaches like Air Canada was on. Wonder if the tunis flight was on a visual like Air Canada.
I was just thinking the same thing. IMO It should be SOP for airlines worldwide to dial in the ILS approach at least as a backup whenever landing with a parallel runway.
I was in the area last night and the weather was appalling. Got around 2.5” of rain in a couple of hours.
Was it going To Nice, or Tunis?
The incident occurred at Nice airport. The landing aircraft was inbound from Tunis.
"...what a close call this WAY."
(s/b was)
This is horrifying – I think OE-IJZ was involved, not OE-IJY.
@ Alvin | YTHK -- Whoops, fixed, thanks!