Jet’s 20-yard near-miss with drone at 11,000f t
RECKLESS drone operators trying to capture ‘ever more spectacular footage’ were blamed yesterday for causing yet another near-miss with a passenger plane.
An official investigation found that a drone the size of a football was flown as close as 20 yards from a commercial jet.
The device passed the right wing of an Airbus A320 at 6.05pm on August 4 over Biggin Hill in London as it was on its way to Heathrow Airport.
The UK Airprox Board (UKAB) said the aircraft’s first officer shouted ‘look!’ as the device passed the plane at about 11,000ft and was around 20 to 40 yards from it.
The incident, combined with two others that took place in Manchester and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, has renewed fears drones could cause a major accident.
The UKAB warned that a minority of drone operators were ‘flagrantly disregarding regulation and common sense’ in pursuit of ‘ever more spectacular video footage’.
It is illegal to fly drones higher than 400ft – or 122 metres.
The warning comes as families across the country are expected to buy drones for Christmas.
Costing as little as £25 and up to £20,000, electronics chain Maplin reported sales of more than 15,000 in the UK last year.
The latest incident was assessed by the UKAB as having the most serious degree of risk.
It said there wasn’t enough time for the crew to take action to avoid a potential collision with the drone, which had a flashing pink light.
Details were passed to the Metro- politan Police but the drone operator could not be traced. The incident was one of three near-misses involving drones which were investigated by the UKAB at its latest meeting.
On July 20 an Embraer 190 jet was in a climbing turn at 2,700ft over the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, shortly after taking off from London City Airport when a drone passed just nine metres above it and 20 metres to its left.
In another case on the same day, a sharp-edged bright yellow drone with a width of 60cm was flown at ‘exactly the level of the flight deck window’ of a Boeing 767 aircraft approaching Manchester Airport.
The report found that the device was ‘so close it must have passed over the right wing’.
In both examples the drone operators were not found.
Last month the Civil Aviation Authority launched a website to promote its code of conduct for drone users – named the Dronecode.
A spokesman for the regulator said: ‘Anyone flouting the rules can face up to five years in prison.’
Some 59 near-misses involving drones have featured in UKAB reports over the past 12 months.
But pilots are worried these incidents will become more common.
In recent years tens of thousands of people have bought drones. Some can now fly above 6,000ft and travel at up to 50 miles per hour.
‘Disregarding common sense’