Mayor demands military be called in to tourist hotspot airport after terrifying easyJet near-miss

It is believed the flight had to make an emergency "ramp up" in order not to crash.

According to preliminary findings from the investigation of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), the aircraft, coming from Tunisia, was preparing to land at the wrong runway.

As a result, the event is being classified by the BEA as a "serious incident".

Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi has promised to ask the French Government to replace air traffic controllers with military personnel while the investigation is ongoing.

He made the announcement, to the surprise of many, at a Nice City Council meeting on October 1, despite the topic not originally being on the agenda.

The council was actually debating a survey of Nice airport users which will be undertaken in order to better meet expectations.

During the debate, Mr Estrosi declared: "At our next city council meeting, I will propose that the French Government replace our air traffic controllers with military personnel.

"We've had enough of air traffic controllers and the DGAC (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), which is incapable of keeping them in check."

He later told reporters: "We are increasingly penalised by the unacceptable behaviour of air traffic controllers in both Nice and Aix-en-Provence.

"This has economic and social consequences."

At the time of the incident, a spokesman for easyJet said: "The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet's highest priority and in line with procedures, we are fully cooperating with the safety investigation that has been launched in order to understand what happened."

If full, there would have been more than 300 passengers and crew members aboard the two planes.

When reporting the incident, easyJet said there was only three metres between the pair of jets.

The Mayor's demand will be put to a vote at the next city council meeting.

In France, air traffic control is currently operated by civil servants who generally must have graduated from the French National Civil Aviation School (ENAC).

Although some airspace is controlled by military air traffic controllers, this is not the case for Nice Airport, which currently has 72 active air traffic controllers, according to the DGCA.