Aeroplane near-misses soar over five years

INCIDENTS involving aircraft have risen almost 60 per cent in five years, figures show, the most serious cases more than doubling in the same period, rising from 22 in 2013 to 45 in 2017.

Half those classified by the UK Airprox Board last year as category A – the highest degree of risk – involved drones, according to figures obtained by the BBC. Flight safety specialists described the increase in drones almost colliding with planes as “very worrying”.

Accidents reported to the Air Accident Investigation Branch rose from 654 in 2013 to 708 in 2017 and the number of air proximity reports rose from 172 in 2013 to 272 last year. That included a gradual rise in the number of aircraft flying too close to each other.

The Civil Aviation Authority suggested that the prevalence of air misses in London and the south east was a symptom of crowded skies.

It emerged yesterday that an RAF Typhoon jet flying in an air show at 575mph missed crashing into a light aircraft over the A1 near Biggleswade, Beds, by one second. The £125million Eurofighter was performing aerobatics for 6,000 spectators at an RAF Centenary air show in May when the small plane passed just 600ft in front of it.

It has never been traced.