An El Al passenger plane came close to disaster on a runway at London Heathrow Airport after pilots forgot to lower the plane’s wheels moments before landing.

The incident took place last month but was made public in the Israeli media only on Tuesday evening .

The Boeing 737 had descended to just 250 metres above the runway before an alarm went off in the cockpit warning that the landing gears had not been lowered.

The pilots reacted by the pulling the aircraft up into a steep ascent in order to miss the runway before completing a circuit around the airport and making a normal landing.

El Al said the chief accident investigator of Israel’s Transportation Ministry would carry out an inquiry into the incident.

According to Haaretz, following the incident, a pilot was ordered to complete a compulsory safety course and undergo additional tests on an El Al training simulator.