AN RAF Tornado was involved in an "air miss" with a Boeing 737 passenger jet an hour before a military aircraft crashed nearby,

The incident, which is still under investigation by military and civil authorities, was one of three safety alerts in the space of eight minutes near Newcastle International Airport.

The three incidents, which happened on October 14 last year, involved a Boeing 737 airliner, two GRI Tornado bombers, an F3 Tornado fighter aircraft and a Sea King helicopter.

And less than an hour after the third incident, a Tornado bomber crashed in Northumberland as the pilot desperately attempted to avoid straying into the airport's airspace.

Both pilots in the final incident were killed after losing control of the jet in bad weather.

The incidents all happened during low-flying exercises, which prompted one MP to call for the issue of low-flying to be urgently investigated.

Hexham MP Peter Atkinson believes people have to be assured that jets are not a danger.

He said: "The whole issue must be properly investigated. We put up with a lot of low-flying in Northumberland and most people do that because they recognise that the RAF needs to do it.

"It is absolutely essential, though, for military air traffic controllers to ensure safety, because the recent number of accidents over the North have generally led to a certain nervousness about how well these missions are controlled.

The incidents led to an bigger buffer zone placed around Newcastle Airport's airspace.