Passenger plane comes close to hitting multiple drones in London

Multiple drones were spotted flying below the plane

In a surprising incident, a passenger plane heading to Heathrow airport in London nearly missed colliding with two drones, the Independent reported.

The white-orb shaped drones were spotted flying just below the airplane by crew members on the Airbus A320.

According to the report issued by the United Kingdom Airprox Board [UKAB], “at first, the pilot thought they were toy balloons, but they appeared to be twice the size of a standard child’s helium balloon. As the turn onto the localiser continued, the objects did not move, despite the wind being 270/30kts, one was estimated to be at 5,500ft and the other at 4,500ft, both were hovering over the uniform stratus cloud layer, which was at 4,000ft.”



“Although avoiding action was unnecessary, the proximity of the drones compromised the safety of the aircraft both due to their proximity but also because of the distraction that they created to ensure there was no collision risk,” the report concluded.

Civil Aviation Authority told the Independent that it “was the first time a near-miss incident involved more than one drone.” The newspaper also adds that one of the drones was spotted half an hour later, flying some 50 metres away from Boeing B77.



The UKAB has recorded 62 near-misses between aircraft and drone in the last 12 months with five in the month of March alone while the police claims drone related incidents to have increased by 352 per cent in one year.