British Airways: Flight full of passengers at 'serious risk' of colliding with drone soon after leaving Heathrow Airport

A British Airways flight carrying up to 216 passengers missed crashing into an illegal drone by around 60ft, a report has revealed. The near miss happened as the jet was flying over Windsor, soon after it had taken off from Heathrow Airport on a flight to Montreal in Canada.

The pilot spotted the drone on the jet's flightpath at a height of 3,000ft just after 8pm on 25 July, according to the report by the UK Airprox Board. The report said: “It was apparent that whilst it was very close, the drone would pass below and to their left. The drone was white, with multiple props but no lights.”

The plane is said to have passed around 20ft above the drone and 60ft away horizontally, leading the pilot to describe the risk of a collision as high. The report rated it as a Category A incident, meaning there was a serious risk of a collision.

Air traffic controllers confirmed the pilot had radioed in that “they had passed a drone very close on the left-hand side, when passing 3,000ft”. The information was passed to the Heathrow control tower “in order that subsequent departures could be made aware of the sighting”.

The height at which the drone was being flown was more than seven times the usual maximum legal height for the devices of 400ft. According to the Daily Mail, it is believed the drone was being flown by someone trying to get dramatic video footage of an airliner in flight.

The operator of the drone in the incident could have been jailed for up to five years for endangering an aircraft if caught. It is believed they were never traced.

UKAB, which assesses near misses in UK airspace, concluded: “In the Board's opinion the reported altitude and/or description of the object were sufficient to indicate that it could have been a drone. The Board considered that the pilot's overall account of the incident portrayed a situation where providence had played a major part in the incident and/or a definite risk of collision had existed.”

A British Airways spokesman said: “We take such matters extremely seriously and our pilots report incidents so that the authorities can investigate and take appropriate action.”