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More From Blair's Memoirs

Tony Blair has revealed he came close to ordering the RAF to shoot down a passenger airliner over London following the 9/11 attacks.

In his newly published memoirs, the former Prime Minister described how he was informed of a plane which wasn't communicating with air-traffic control, and that fighter jets had been scrambled.

But moments after he decided not to give the order to shoot, a technical error was resolved and contact was regained.

Mr Blair said he needed to "sit down and thank God for that one".

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