YARDS FROM DISASTER
Watch terrifying moment Boeing 757 passenger jet nearly COLLIDES with Cessna plane in mid-air near-miss
THIS is the heart-stopping moment a Boeing 757 passenger jet almost smashed into a Cessna plane mid-air.
The quick-thinking pilot of the smaller plane was able to swerve away from disaster just in time over Orlando International Airport - sparing hundreds of likely casualties.
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The passenger-packed Boeing 757 took off from the Florida airport on August 17 and started rapidly ascending towards the Cessna.
Pilot Malik Clarke spotted the jet barrelling towards his much smaller plane and was forced to take "evasive action" to avoid a horror fatal smash.
Footage taken from inside the Cessna shows Malik calmly ascending over the huge plane as it climbs through the air - narrowly dodging a deadly mid-air collision.
He told : "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."
Malik's fast thinking stopped the two planes smashing by a short margin of just 500ft.
He added: "If I hadn’t done that evasive maneuver, it’s quite likely there would have been a mid-air collision."
The pilot said he had just switched frequencies and was not in touch with air traffic control at that moment.
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Footage taken from the Cessna's cockpit shows the Boeing 757 whizz under the tiny aircraft at high speed.
It is understood both pilots saw each other and spoke to control after the near-miss.
The Federal Aviation Administration is now probing the incident and why the planes ended up closer than advised.
Delta Air Lines has also launched its own internal investigation, adding: "Nothing is more important than safety."
It comes after one person died and another was badly injured after severe weather flipped two planes at the Orlando Executive Airport.
Harrowing photos showed the planes upside down after the wild weather caused them to overturn last Thursday.
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Two people were onboard one of the twin-engine planes that was overturned while the other aircraft was vacant, fire officials said.
Both planes ended up on their roofs after strong wind gusts in Florida at the time of the emergency.
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