Harrison Ford under investigation after almost crashing into a passenger jet when landing his private plane
The Hollywood actor passed directly over a Boeing 737 carrying 110 passengers
HARRISON Ford is under investigation for nearly crashing into a passenger jet.
The screen star, 74, who was in a serious plane crash in 2015, was instructed by air traffic control to land his single engine Husky on runway 20-L at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California.
But Harrison mistakenly aimed for a taxiway – passing directly over an American Airlines flight, loaded with 110 passengers and a six-person crew.
He was captured on air traffic control recordings asking: “Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?”
Air traffic controllers then informed Harrison that he had landed on a taxiway rather than the runway.
Despite this, reports that he violated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety rules by landing on a taxiway.
The FAA say the actor read the instructions back yet still somehow ended up aiming for the taxiway.
The incident has prompted an FAA investigation – which could result in anything from a simple warning letter to a suspension of Ford’s pilot’s licence.
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Harrison has been involved in a series of crashes and near-misses while flying aircraft.
In 2015, he crash-landed a World War II-era airplane on a Santa Monica golf course after the engine failed, suffering a broken arm and minor head injuries.
But he was praised for keeping his cool after he managed to glide his airplane into the crash landing.
Aviation expert Rick Dake said that Ford's landing was amazing considering the unforgiving nature of the World War II-era plane.
Rick told : "Everything he did was perfect. He was able to keep that plane away from the houses and land it with the least impact on the community.
"That was the best place he could have landed it. He was 100 per cent doing exactly what an excellent aviator would do."
He also crash-landed a helicopter in 1999 during a flight lesson in Ventura County, California.
And in 2000, Harrison’s six-seater Beechcraft Bonanza scraped the runway during an emergency landing at Nebraska’s Lincoln Municipal Airport.
Ford’s love of the flying began in the 1960s when he took some flight training courses at Wild Rose Airport in Wisconsin.
But at £12 an hour, he could not afford to continue the training.
It was in the mid-1990s that Ford bought a used Gulfstream II and decided to ask a pilot to give him flying lessons.
Since then, he has seldom been far from the pilot’s seat.
Ford told the trade magazine in 2004: “I have more airplanes than it’s fair for anybody to have."