TOP-level talks are being demanded to eliminate dangerous near misses between civilian and military aircraft in the North-East.

Pilots have called on British airlines to try to avoid flying in uncontrolled airspace after the report by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB).

It says the use of unregulated airspace - that is outside airport control - needs to be reviewed jointly "at the highest level" by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Ministry of Defence with the aim of eliminating potential collisions "with a likely large-scale loss of life".

The call follows nine near misses in four years involving Newcastle, Aberdeen and Teesside airports.

The report says the CAA should put measures in place to ensure civil aircraft are protected from military planes.

It also wants the Ministry of Defence to look at its own operation in unregulated airspace, including its practice of intercepting targets.

The British Airline Pilots' Association has long campaigned for the phasing out of uncontrolled airspace, known to them as "bandit country".

John McAuslan, general secretary, said: "There are more incidents now both because there are more airliners and because low level flying has been banned by Germany and other European countries. So their military aircraft have taken to flying low level over Britain.

"There is the added danger too that with the increase in jet fuel prices, airlines may seek to save money by short-circuiting routes and flying more often in the non-controlled zones.

"The number of near-misses between civil and military aircraft worries us a great deal."

In April 2002, two Sea Harriers on a naval exercise mistook a civil aircraft with three crew and 16 passengers for the target it was told to intercept They were within 3,456ft of the plane, which had just left Newcastle Airport on its way to Stavanger.

The AAIB says more regulated airspace around regional airports in the north-east of England would seem to offer the optimum solution for the safety of civil planes.

"But this would be at the expense of the available airspace in one of the few large scale training areas in which military aircraft operate in the UK," said the report.

It is concerned that despite procedures, monitoring and airspace changes, already put in place in an attempt to prevent such incidents, they continue to occur.

The most recent one, in February this year, occurred between an RAF Tornado and a helicopter returning to Aberdeen from an oil platform.

The helicopter crew "became aware of a roaring noise coupled by a very short time later, the sudden onset of harsh and severe turbulence.

"The commander grabbed the controls and looked across the cockpit to the left in time to see the co-pilot's windscreen and quarter light filled with what he believed to be the rear section of a Tornado aircraft at a range of 50ft."

In March 2000, the crew of a Shorts twin-engined aircraft travelling from Aberdeen to Newcastle was told by the radar controller to avoid an RAF Tornado F3, estimated to be as close as 100 ft above and 300ft to the side. None of the crew in either plane saw the other until that point.

And in August 2001 a twin-engine Fokker 50 narrowly missed a US Air Force F15E fighter jet south-east of Teesside airport.

But the luckiest escape was possibly in July 2002 when the pilot of a civil transport plane inbound to Newcastle was warned to climb to avoid an RAF Jaguar.

Before it could do so, the flight officer "saw him in a flash passing underneath while in a steep climb just 100 feet away".

The AAIB agreed it was one of the most serious close encounters it had seen.

In June last year there was also a reported near miss between an F100 climbing out of Teesside on a flight to Amsterdam and what was said to be three unknown fast jet aircraft.

But a Teesside spokesman said that was untrue. It was actually a Tocona single prop twin seater training plane and there had been no risk of collision.

"There is a lot of military activity in this area but there is an ongoing dialogue with the RAF.

"If there was to be an investigation into air space, we would expect to be involved in any discussion."

Chris Davies, Newcastle air traffic services manager, said: "This is an issue between the CAA and the MoD.

"At a local level I think we have done a lot to address what are considered to be problems and have virtually eradicated them."

Newcastle airport has already acted on recommendations aimed at improving the safety of users of its airspace.

A military liaison officer is now deployed to its air traffic control (ATC) during military exercises and transponders have been fitted to military aircraft, sending out easily identifiable signals, helping ATC to identify them on radar.

Military aircraft on specified routes are also obliged to contact Newcastle ATC and airspace between Newcastle and Manchester area has already been upgraded. It requires all military aircraft within that airspace to be radar separated from all other traffic.

During military exercises a three-mile wide airspace buffer zone is established around Newcastle's controlled airspace to provide additional protection and there is generally close co-ordination with the MoD on military exercises near the airport or its controlled airspace.

Following talks with the MoD additional controlled airspace around Newcastle and linking Newcastle to Aberdeen, has been submitted to the Directorate of Airspace Policy