THREE AIRLINERS IN NEAR-MISSES WITH DRONES AT HEATHROW

LONDON Three airliners narrowly missed colliding with drones near London’s Heathrow Airport in the space of three weeks last year, underscoring increasing concerns about the devices near aircraft, a report Friday said.

The report by the U.K. Airprox Board, which catalogues air safety incidents, offered new details on the close calls in October and November. In the most unusual incident, the pilots of an A320 passenger plane descending into Heathrow noticed a gadget with multiple arms and rotors passing below the plane’s right wing at 10,000 feet.

“Was that a drone?” the pilots exclaimed. “At 10,000 feet!”

The separation between drone and plane was just 30 metres vertically and 200 metres horizontally. The pilot said there was no time to react, the report said.

While actual collisions are rare, the number of near-misses has increased dramatically in recent years as the popularity of drones has grown. There were 70 near misses between objects identified as drones and aircraft in 2016, compared to 29 in 2015 and six in 2014, the board said.

Drones must not be flown above 120 metres in Britain.