MESSAGE BOARD: Air safety

June 29, 1999
Web posted at: 1:27 p.m. EDT (1727 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- An Icelandair plane with 185 passengers and an Air France cargo jet nearly collided at Kennedy Airport Sunday night, missing each other by 50 feet, the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday.

Air France Flight 6498 had landed at approximately 9:45 p.m. and began to taxi when the pilot was told to hold short of a parallel runway on which the Icelandair jet was about to take off.

According to FAA officials, the Air France Boeing 757 jet did not follow that instruction and crossed the parallel runway just as the Icelandair jet, a Boeing 747, was taking off at a speed of 170 mph. It passed 200 feet over the cargo plane and 50 feet to the side of it as it took off, officials said.

The Icelandair jet did not have to take evasive action.

FAA regulations call for no planes to be on an active runway except for the plane landing or taking off.

The FAA said it will conduct an investigation, checking the actions of both the air traffic controller and the Air France pilot.

"This is the closest I ever saw two planes get together. I was hoping I didn't hear the sound of shearing metal," a Kennedy Airport controller was quoted as saying in the newspaper Newsday. He said the control tower became so quiet "you could hear a pin drop."

More than a thousand planes take off or land at Kennedy Airport every day.

Reuters contributed to this report.