Heroic Chinese pilot who saved 439 lives in near-miss drama by steering his plane out of danger is awarded £360k... as video shows just how close the incident was

Yrs ago whle landing in Bkk we were just about to touch down when the pilot went to full throttle with hard left turn and very steep climb. Everything went flying and flight attendents/passengers were screaming. We finally leveled out and pilot announced in shaky voice that he was sorry about that, that there was suddenly unauthorized traffic that rolled across the runway in front of us.

His quick thinking saved lives.Well done Captain Chao.

Good on the Capt and shame on some of the commentators here. The natural reaction to such an incident would have been to brake and try to abort the landing, much as a car driver would have done, The Capt was probably approaching V1, the point at which to abort is a non option and you have to take off. The Capt seems only to have had split seconds to make his decision, which in this case was the right one. To have aborted take off would inevitably have resulted in a re-run of the Tenerife disaster in 1977. He deserves his reward.

Some nasty comments on here, like to see the people being rude do a better job than he did, he did an excellent job and at last DM, this is a decent news story!

He is a hero!!!

Steering? Can't the Daily Mail find anyone with a clue about aviation terms?

VERY well done to that pilot!!!!

Good decision to accelerate and continue to fly, if he panicked and push the breaks he would have collided with the other aircraft and it would have been a disaster.

He didn't really have a choice, at 149mph he is above V1 speed (speed at which takeoff cannot be aborted) and close to rotation speed. By engaging full throttle he's reached V2 (climbing speed) faster but this is the only choice he had. The pilots extensive training clearly proved it's worth as he reacted in a cool calm manner as expected. A good days work, apart from the ground controllers of course.

Like doctors, you're not paying them to do the easy stuff so much as paying them to handle things when it suddenly goes sideways.

Simulation shows just how close things were. His actions definitely saved a lot of lives. Glad everyone was ok.

Bravo

It's nice to see his employer rewarded him. Good for him, and his crew.

That was almost Tenerife again !!! Good job the pilot was awake !!

Fair play, he reacted on instinct and saved the day....I hope you and your family enjoy the home that you can now buy if indeed you don't already have superior accommodation.

That is a simulator video, probably accurate though.

Well done sir, enjoy your reward x

Tenerife 27 March 1977. KLM aircraft took off with out permission and hit a PanAm aircraft still on the runway. 587 dead. This video is very similar to what happened there EXCEPT the events were the other way around.

Echos of that tragic incident in Tenerife all those years ago.

Usually against rewarding but if one person deserves it he is the one ,Sir couse of you hundreds of people are alive and they probably don't know how to thank u .How can u thank someone for saving your life?