Near-miss: Passenger jet ‘narrowly avoided’ hitting drone at Gatwick airport in April
An Airbus passenger jet carrying as many as 186 passengers was forced to take evasive action to avoid a drone as it approached Gatwick airport, it has emerged.
The airliner was flying at 518 metres towards the West Sussex airport on 28 April when the pilot saw a dark-coloured drone and made a banking turn to the right of up to eight degrees to avoid the device, according to the UK Airprox Board (UKAB).
UKAB said the drone was flying above the maximum legal height of 400 feet and within controlled airspace, and said the near-miss was in its highest category of risk.
The report did not identify which airline the plane was flying with, but Easyjet and British Airways operate the A320 model to and from Gatwick.
UKAB also discussed three other category A incidents at its last monthly meeting, including one involving the pilot of a Boeing 747 jet seeing a yellow and orange drone pass down the left side of the plane as they were approaching Heathrow.
Drone-prone
Airports have had to take far more notice of the danger posed by drones to commercial flights in recent years.
The threat crystallised in December last year as more than 140,000 people’s Christmas travel was derailed by drone sightings at Gatwick, with more than 1,000 flights cancelled or diverted over a 36-hour period.
Heathrow, Leeds, Bradford and Dublin have all had drone scares this year.
There were 125 near-misses involving drones reported in 2018, up 34 per cent on the total of 93 in 2017.
Just six incidents were recorded in 2014.
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