HONG KONG - Authorities in Hong Kong have launched a probe into a near-miss incident at the city's airport between a Hong Kong Airlines plane and a cargo aircraft on Friday morning (Sept 22), the South China Morning Post reported.

The incident between the Hong Kong Airlines flight HX236 and the Air Cargo Global flight CW831 happened at 8.55am on Friday.

The two planes were 1km apart when the incident happened, the report cited the Civil Aviation Department as saying.

The Hong Kong airliner was taking off for the Chinese city of Shanghai when the pilots spotted the cargo aircraft crossing the runway horizontally, forcing them to slam the brakes in order to avoid a collision.

No injuries were reported in the incident and the A333 airliner later flew to Shanghai according to schedule, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Department told the paper.