Near miss for Charles

Prince Charles narrowly escaped death when his RAF jet was involved in a near-miss with a plane carrying 186 passengers, it emerged today.

The Prince, who was on his way to Madrid to take part in a memorial service for the city's train bombing victims, was later told about the near-miss by his staff.

A spokesman for Clarence House said: "Passengers were informed of the incident afterwards but they weren't actually aware of it while the flight was taking place."

The Prince was with one of his private secretaries and a military equerry on the HS146 jet and had just taken off from RAF Northolt.

His flight had climbed to about 11,500 feet above Newbury when it came dangerously close to an Airbus A321 passenger jet making an approach to land at Heathrow.

It is not known whether either pilot had time to take evasive action. It is understood the Airbus, which has a cruising speed of more than 500mph and would have been travelling at at least 150mph at the time of the near-miss, was full of holidaymakers.

The air industry requires planes to fly no nearer than 1,000 feet apart vertically with a five miles horizontal spacing.

But even at relatively low speeds, as in this incident, planes can close the fivemile distance within a minute.

Initial reports suggest the incident would be put down to an air traffic control blunder rather than pilot error.

If this proves to be the case it will lead to further criticism of the controversial ?620million National Air Traffic Services, which has been blamed for more than a dozen near-misses above Britain since it was launched in January 2002. The part-privatised

operation has suffered staff shortages, a high proportion of delays, poor performance and computer failures.

The Civil Aviation Authority has brief details of the incident on its website but does not make any mention of the Prince's involvement.

The statement said: "An Aircraft Proximity (Airprox) report has been filed ... involving a military aircraft and an A321. The incident took place near Newbury on Wednesday March 24 at 0830 hours. The A321 was en route to Heathrow and receiving an air traffic control service from the London Terminal Control Centre.

"The incident took place at approximately 11,500 feet.

"These details are subject to assessment by the independent UK Airprox Board."

The board will decide on the seriousness of the incident and report later in the year.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We can confirm that there was a near-miss incident but not which aircraft were involved."