Jumbo jets 'miss colliding by 10 metres'
Inexperienced ground controllers may have contributed to a near collision between two jumbo jets carrying almost 700 passengers over Japan.
One of the pilots, 40-year-old Makoto Watanabe, has told aviation officials that the two Japan Airlines craft came within just 10 metres of colliding over central Japan.
He put the plane into a sharp dive in an attempt to avert a disaster, leaving 42 people injured, two seriously.
Mr Watanabe's report places the two planes much closer than an initial estimate he made immediately after the incident on Wednesday.
He had told the control tower the planes had come within 60 metres of each other.
A probe into the cause of the near collision of the Boeing 747 piloted by Mr Watanabe and a DC-10, has been begun by aviation officials at the Transportation Ministry.
"The most important thing now is to determine where responsibility lies and what the causes were," top government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda said.
Police are investigating the possibility of criminal negligence and attention is already focusing on the inexperience of the tower personnel in Tokyo, who were responsible for some of Japan's busiest air space.
A flight transcript revealed air traffic controllers addressed both pilots using mistaken flight numbers.
A 26-year-old trainee was working under the guidance of his 32-year-old supervisor, said Yukio Yoshida, an official with the ministry's Air Traffic Control Division.
The trainee was certified for the job three years ago, and his supervisor had about nine years' experience, media reports said, citing unidentified ministry sources.
The near collision took place at about 36,000 feet west of Tokyo.
