A plane landing at New York Airport nearly collided with another airliner.

The Delta Air Lines plane, arriving from Atlanta at LaGuardia Airport, was only 100 feet (30 m) from the ground before abruptly changing direction and heading back into the sky. Fox5NY told us more.

Mindy, who did not give her last name, was a passenger on Delta Flight 468 and had a window seat.

“We went lower and lower and lower, and I could already see the water,” she said.

At 12:18 p.m. on November 16, the plane was only 100 feet (30 m) in the air, according to Flight Aware. About 30 seconds later it rose again to an altitude of over 1,500 feet (457 m).

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“We suddenly took off, took off into the sky and started circling the city,” Mindy added.

Soon after, the plane made a smooth landing, she said.

“There was another plane on the runway that was taking up too much time,” passengers were told. “So the dispatch service asked us to wait.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed the incident: “An air traffic controller instructed Delta Air Lines Flight 468 to make a turn because another aircraft was taking longer than expected to leave the runway.”

“Typically, there are certain distance and time criteria that controllers must follow, and a reduction of up to 100 feet is quite low,” said attorney Daniel Rose, a partner at aviation litigation firm Kreindler & Kreindler. “As a general rule, aircraft should not approach an airport within three miles (4.8 km).”

To those in the industry, a workaround maneuver is considered a safe and planned procedure under the control of the pilot, but to an airline passenger it may seem like an emergency maneuver.

According to Rose, they happen more often than you might think.