20 August 2025 , 20:15
840
0
The Airbus A320 was near London’s Heathrow Airport at 9,000 ft during the near miss in May when the Captain and First Officer "saw a bright white object pass overhead from the opposite direction".
A passenger jet came so close to colliding with a drone that the object “filled” the plane’s windscreen.
The Airbus A320 had just taken off from London’s Heathrow Airport and was at 9,000 ft during the near miss in May. A report into the incident revealed: “Both the Captain and First Officer saw a bright white object pass overhead from the opposite direction."
"The object appeared to be approximately 2-3m in size at the very least, it may have been larger as it filled a good portion of the windshield. There was no appreciable separation vertical or horizontal,” according to the documents logged to report the incident.
The UK’s Airprox Board, the in-flight incident investigation body, was told a suspected drone had been spotted near London’s City Airport prior to the incident. The report added: “The First Officer observed that it was triangular in shape.
"The Captain only saw the object for a second or two in peripheral vision, so could not reliably comment on the shape. No markings were identified." The pilot stated that the object “went over us, probably within about 10m”.
The Board considered that “providence had played a major part in the incident and/or a definite risk of collision had existed”. In April, the Mirror reported how a drone came within ’10m-20m’ of colliding with a Boeing 737 airliner on its approach to Gatwick Airport, amid growing concerns about the use of the airborne devices near airports.
The passenger plane was over Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex, on its approach to land at Gatwick when the drone was spotted. The B737 Captain saw a black object in front of the aircraft and there was "no time to take avoiding action".
The incident on January 12 this year was given an A rating, the most serious risk level. It was reported to Air Traffic Control with the danger of a collision said to be ’high’. The use of drones is on the rise across the UK.
There have been repeated warnings from police about their use in and around airports and in public spaces. A new ray gun that uses high-frequency radio waves to blast them out of the sky has been successfully trialed by the Army.
Soldiers used the weapon to target them in the largest trial of its type at a firing range in Wales. It was praised as a game-changer by defence minister Maria Eagle.
Each blast from the Radiofrequency Directed Energy Weapon (RF DEW) costs just 10p, so it could be used alongside existing systems, the Ministry of Defence said. The UK-built weapon uses radio waves to damage critical electronic components inside drones, causing them to crash or malfunction. It can fire at drones flying up to 1km away and the tests have proven it was capable of hitting multiple targets simultaneously.
The army tracked, engaged, and defeated more than 100 drones using the weapon. No.10 has invested more than £40m in RF DEW research and development to date and the project supports 135 jobs in Northern Ireland and southeast England. The MOD has previously said the development of RF DEW systems could play a role in preventing disruption at airports. It is expected that new technology will be used to tackle the problem at airports across the UK.
Politics Editor