Air crews duck for cover as a pilot pulls off a terrifying low pass, missing them by a few feet.

Video of an Ikyushin II-76 plane hurtling towards crew at a Ukrainian Air Force base has been posted on Facebook .

Starting as a small dot in the sky, the plane rapidly gets nearer, and lower, as ground staff watch on nervously.

One man climbs down from a grounded plane's cockpit, unsure of whether the pilot will manage to complete the highly risky manoeuvre.

Others can be seen jogging out of the way.

But the aircraft manages to clear them all and just misses a plane tip, as the deafening noise of its engines indicates how close it came to disaster.

According to the Journal Unlimited, which posted the video, the pilot's stunt was actually intended as a joke.

Designed in the former Soviet Union, the Ilyushin Il-76 is a heavy transport aircraft initially designed to carry machinery to poor areas of the USSR. It has also been used as a military plane, but is now more frequently deployed as a commercial freighter.