A passenger jet approaching a Scottish airport found itself in the middle of an RAF war game involving 14 military aircraft.

An investigation into the July 2010 incident has reprimanded the Royal Air Force for the "needless incident", saying the exercise should have been abandoned when it became clear a passenger plane was in the airspace, the Scotsman reports.

The RAF Tornadoes had been simulating a strike on Stornoway Airport and had not been expecting passenger planes in the vicinity.

But budget airline Flybe came in to land at the airport on the Western Isles and saw two Tornadoes heading straight for them at 1100ft, a report by the Airprox Board says.

"A few seconds later they had a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) climb command, quickly followed by a monitor vertical speed command."

The Flybe flight crew climbed to 2000ft but then saw two Hawks "manoeuvring aggressively" below them and alerted air traffic control.

"The military aircraft knew the passenger plane had gone around... but still continued to attack their target," the report says.

The pilot "assessed the risk of collision as being high and reported the incident to the Stornoway approach controller".

Loganair, which operated the flight for Flybe, says it has since met with the RAF and agreed upon improvements to communication.