Passenger plane in 'near miss' with drone as it flew over the Shard on Heathrow approach

Close call: A drone nearly caused a plane to crash above the Shard
Getty
Fiona Simpson17 November 2016

A passenger jet avoided a potential disaster “by chance” in a near-miss with a drone while flying near the Shard.

The Airbus A320 was carrying 165 passengers over Britain's tallest building during a final descent into Heathrow Airport, when it came within 65ft (20m) of the remote-controlled gadget, an official report has revealed.

The pilot spotted the drone out of the right flight deck window at 12.45pm on July 17, according to the UK Airprox Board.

Crew members told investigators that the drone had “probably” passed over the right wing of the plane as it flew at 4,900ft past the iconic 95-storey skyscraper.

It is also believed to have narrowly missed hitting the horizontal stabiliser, found on the tail of the plane.

It was the third drone near-miss in consecutive days involving airliners coming in to land at Heathrow, The Daily Mirror reported.

A drone was in a near-miss with the plane near the Shard (Shutterstock )
Shutterstock

Just one day earlier, an Airbus A319 pilot saw a large drone pass 330ft away down the left side of his aircraft.

The day before that, an A320 pilot saw a drone fly within 50ft of his wing tip as he was coming in to land.

Last month, police launched an investigation after recieving reports of drones spotted flying near Heathrow.

Flight crew alerted police after seeing a drone approaching the airport’s transport hub and another sighting was reported a few miles away near the Queen Mother Reservoir on October 10.

The UKAB report said: "Members agreed that this incident appeared to be a very near-miss and that the drone operator should not have been flying in that location at that altitude."

It added that the account given of the incident "portrayed a situation where a collision had only been narrowly avoided and chance had played a major part".

It deemed the incident to be in the most serious category of risk and said the drone operator had not been traced.

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