‘Someone will be fired’: Fans left terrified by planes’ 14m near-miss before All Blacks clash

Two planes left fans terrified after almost colliding with the DHL Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa.

A flyover kicked off the second rugby Test of South Africa vs New Zealand but what was supposed to be a thrilling theatric display almost ended in disaster.

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The passenger planes, two Airlink Embraer 190s, flew over the stadium as fireworks exploded narrowly beneath.

But the pilots flew dangerously close to the stadium roof, with the New Zealand-themed jet almost crashing before lifting up its tail at the last moment.

Following closely behind the South Africa plane flew through the smoke of a pyrotechnic.

The incident left fans stunned, with Flight Radar confirming one plane dropped to just 12-14 metres above the top of the stadium.

For many watching on from home the planes flew far to close for comfort.

“CRIKEY!” tweeted former cricketer Kevin Pietersen.

“There’s low flyovers and then there’s this. Whoa boy,” wrote aviation expert Michael Glynn.

“What is it with South Africa and dangerously low flyovers!?” tweeted sports reporter Matt Wright.

“Someone will and should be fired for that, an almost unimaginable disaster,” added X user Mike Buckley.

“This is just mental. Someone is in trouble,” said Craig Walters on social media.

“Absolutely unnecessary and dangerous. This is way too low,” commented Shane Connor.

“No no no that’s way too low. Everyone is lucky to be alive right now. Yikes,” said Alonzo Adams Media.

However Airlink boasted about the display, writing on social media: “Planning. Precision. Performance.

“Spectacular scenes of Airlink’s double Embraer flyover at the DHL Stadium.”

The two planes were flying at roughly 220kph at the time they went over the stadium.

Flyovers have been a common feature at Springboks matches since the 1995 Rugby World Cup, with one taking place before the first Test against the All Blacks last week.

The event set up an entertaining spectacle in Cape Town with South Africa beating New Zealand 33-26 to level the series 1-1.

It is a first defeat as All Blacks coach for Dave Rennie, who took over in March.

“South Africa were good tonight, really physical. They stopped a lot of our momentum,” he told SuperSport.

“We’re confident we can bounce back.”

There was also a point of contention between Rennie and opposite coach Rassie Erasmus over the scrum, with the Springbok boss left furious.

“The scrums were better tonight, I think [referee] Angus [Gardner] was pretty strong around setting a mark and then trying to keep the hookers in the same sort of spacing and if the Springboks moved across further left then he stopped them,” Rennie said.

“We’ll give a bit of feedback around that, that’s still a bit of an issue for us because they’re able to walk around and go straight through our tighthead.

“So a couple of little technical things that we’ll share again but I thought in the end the scrums, both teams were able to play off them and so I think Angus did a reasonable job there.”

Erasmus hit back, suggesting Rennie was talking “nonsense”.

“It’s the first time ever in history that people are talking about us walking around,” he said.

“So why is it only on their ball that the scrum collapsed every single time? I don’t come with that nonsense and saying that we’re walking around and you try and put those things out in the media.

“If I’m starting to put things out, the last lineout was skew and we contested it. I’m not going to moan my arse off about that.”