Two airliners appear to fly just FEET from each other near Luton Airport in heart-stopping eyewitness video taken on the ground... but is all as it seems?
This is the moment two planes appear to fly just feet from each other in a heart-stopping video - but not all is as it seems.
The anxiety-inducing footage, shot from the ground, shows the two planes appearing to cross paths while flying over the village of Aldenham, Hertfordshire.
But aviation experts say the video is just an example of forced perspective.
They say the planes, a Boeing 777 and an Airbus A330, were likely more than 1,000ft apart - the minimum distance commercial airlines must be from each other when below cruising altitude.
Meanwhile the Aviation Herald, which regularly publishes records of flight incidents, shows no records of recent near misses in the area - which is near to Luton Airport.
The video shows the two planes appearing to cross paths while flying over the village of Aldersham, Hertfordshire, near to Luton Airport
The nail-biting footage, recorded by a person on the ground, shows the moment one plane passes over the other
The footage starts with the two planes, which are so far from the ground that the branding and markings cannot be seen, appearing to fly towards each other.
One plane appears to be pulling upwards, while the other appears to be maintaining its altitude.
The footage appears to show the two planes drawing closer together before one crosses over the other.
However aviation experts believe the two planes were hundreds of feet apart.
One told MailOnline: 'Judging by the fact you can’t see the livery on either, both planes are above 10,000ft.
The footage starts with the two planes, which are so far from the ground that the branding and markings cannot be seen, appearing to fly towards each other
One plane appears to be pulling upwards, while the other appears to be maintaining its altitude
Aviation experts believe the two planes were hundreds of feet apart and could be up to 10,000 feet in the air at the time
'In the UK and most of Europe we have something called Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) airspace, where qualified aircraft and crew can fly in specific airways at a minimum separation of 1,000ft for opposite direction traffic.
'So this is forced perspective.'
Under aviation rules, commercial aircraft flying below 29,000ft must maintain a vertical separation of at least 1,000 ft.
Any higher and the separation increases to 2,000 ft, except in airspace where RVSM applies.
In controlled airspace, the required minimum horizontal separation between aircraft flying at the same altitude is five nautical miles, which is just over 3,000ft.
When a plane is departing, Air Traffic Controllers can place aircraft much closer to each other than they do at cruise altitude.
This means in the terminal area airspace, horizontal separation decreases to at least three nautical miles.
Though it is unclear when the video was taken, there are also no records of 'near misses' on the Civil Aviation Authority's website in the area.
The Aviation Herald, which regularly publishes aviation incidents, also does not have any record of near misses in the UK in recent weeks.
The last recorded incident on the website in the UK was a technical issue on an Lingus A320 near Manchester on January 3.
The optical illusion that lets you 'catch' planes and 'hold up' the Leaning Tower of Pisa: What is forced perspective?
Forced perspective is a technique used to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is.
An optical illusion, it can trick the brain through the use of scaled objects and the correlation between them and the vantage point.
It can be used in a variety of ways, including in photography, film-making and architecture
Perhaps the most classic forced perspective image is of people 'holding up' the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.
This is achieved by positioning the person significantly closer to the camera than the famous monument - making both appear to be similarly sized.
The photography trick can also be used to 'catch' moving planes - again because a person's hand is significantly closer to the camera than the much bigger plane.
The photography trick can be used to 'catch' moving planes - because a person's hand is significantly closer to the camera than the much bigger plane
An optical illusion, forced perspective can trick the brain through the use of scaled objects and the correlation between them and the vantage point - as seen here
In film-making, before the advent of advanced digital graphics, the technique was used to create large monsters.
It was famously used in the Lord of the Rings series to make actors playing characters such as dwarves and hobbits appear much smaller than their human allies.
And it has been used in architecture too, particularly in church buildings where small spaces at the back of a church were typically designed to look significantly grander to those walking in.
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