Manchester United in mid-air near miss after 'frightening' aborted plane landing in Cologne airport Manchester United were involved in a mid-air drama in Germany on Tuesday night with the chartered plane carrying the team forced to abort its landing just 400 metres above the runway at Cologne's Konrad Adenauer Airport. With the Monarch Airlines A321, flight number MON 9254, scheduled to touch down at 5.30pm local time, the pilot was forced to abandon his landing due to another aircraft being on the runway. The plane circled the airport before landing 10 minutes late at 5.40pm. One passenger on the plane, which was carrying David Moyes's squad and senior figures including former chief executive David Gill to Wednesday's Champions League clash with Bayer Leverkusen, claimed that the experience was 'very frightening," with cabin crew understood to have made an announcement following the incident in order to calm frayed nerves on the 185-seater aircraft. United defender Rio Ferdinand tweeted about the drama shortly after landing, saying, 'Landed in Germany....just....I've only just recovered after that choppy landing! Neither Sir Bobby Charlton, the last surviving Busby Babe, nor former manager Sir Alex Ferguson was on the plane. Despite the delayed landing in Cologne, United's base for their encounter with Leverkusen, Moyes and defender Chris Smalling appeared relaxed and unfazed by the dramatic landing when they arrived at the pre-match press conference in Leverkusen.