An easyJet flight came with one second of crashing at Lisbon airport after pilots miscalculated the length of the runway.
The flight from Lisbon to Manchester, carrying 167 passengers and six crew, only cleared the airport fence by 35 feet as it took off on 16 September 2019.
A report by the Air Accidents Investigations Branch (AAIB) found that pilots had miscalculated the length of the runway by nearly a mile. There were no injuries or damage to the aircraft as a result of the incident.
The Airbus A320 came within 1.3 seconds or 110 metres of the end of the runway, which could have “caused significant damage to the aircraft and its occupants”, said the report.
AAIB said the pilots used the full length of the runway to make their take-off calculations when they should have used the distance from the intersection on the runway they were using.
“During the completion of the initial calculation the crew were interrupted numerous times,” said the report.
“During the flight the crew realised what had happened, and they reported it to the operator after landing. The operator had two very similar events in April and May 2019.”