TRANSPORT Secretary Alistair Darling has been accused of keeping villagers in the dark over a dramatic "near miss" of two jumbo jets over Lyneham.

The transatlantic planes came so close to colliding that avoidance systems in the cockpits sounded a warning, said Computer Weekly magazine.

The pilot in a Virgin Atlantic 747-400 swerved to avoid a Delta Airlines 767, causing a female passenger to suffer a broken leg.

The near miss, blamed on a combination of human error and system weakness, occurred on November 15 last year, but was never revealed.

Now James Gray, Tory MP for North Wiltshire, has written to Mr Darling demanding to know why the incident was kept under wraps.

Mr Gray said: "This incident could have had devastating consequences, not only for those travelling on the planes, but for those constituents living directly under their flight path. I want Mr Darling to examine the report thoroughly, let me know whether or not its contents are correct, and if so, what caused the incident.

"I would expect there to be a protocol to inform the local MP of this kind of thing and I want to know why I wasn't told."

Computer Weekly reported that National Air Traffic Services had changed the way its controllers operated systems following the incident.

Nats, which runs air traffic control systems in the UK, said the incident was being investigated by the independent UK Airprox Board.