A BUDGET airliner narrowly escaped hurtling into the ocean at 300mph just moments after take off from an Italian holiday island.
The Air Arabia flight suddenly dipped and began falling through the sky just 11 seconds after its wheels left the runway at Catania Airport in Sicily.
The plane – an Airbus A320 – sank to just 200ft above the water before miraculously pulling up and regaining altitude.
After the heart-stopping near miss, the plane continued on its way to Amman, Jordan’s capital, without hitch.
It’s unclear what caused the plane to follow the erratic and dangerous flight path.
Data shows it was also travelling at an excessive speed.
The Italian National Agency for Flight Safety (ANSV) called it a “serious incident” and has opened an investigation.
There were no passengers on board, but the plane was manned by two pilots and four flight attendants.
An alarm sounded shortly after take-off, warning the plane to pull up, according to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Called the Ground Proximity Warning System, it pings when there is a risk of a dangerous collision between the plane and terrain below.
ANSV said: “This occurred as the aircraft approached the sea surface, to within a short distance.”
The dangerous dive happened at 11:57pm on September 20.
There were good weather conditions that day.
ANSV said it quickly recognised the danger of the situations, but that it was immediately resolved and the plane went on to land as planned just under three hours later.
The pilots will be required to recount details of their version of events, which will be cross-referenced with data from onboard systems.
Possible explanations for the incident include an error in calculating the take-off weights or a faulty manoeuvre by the pilots.
Just days later, an EasyJet plane was involved in “one of the closest near misses” in aviation history.
The plane narrowly avoided a terrifying crash after an incoming aircraft came within ten feet of the jet on the runway at a French airport.
A Tunisian Nouvelair jet preparing to land was forced to apply full power to avoid colliding with the Easyjet aircraft which was getting ready to take off.
The pilots of the Tunisian Airbus mistakenly tried to land on the wrong runway at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport, which has two parallel strips situated close together, The Times reported.
They were forced to land the jet at a speed of 170mph to avoid crashing into the easyJet flight.
Both the planes came within 10ft of colliding – said to be one of the closest near misses in the history of aviation.
