According to the Daily Mail, the incident happened on January 3 – What's in the UK Airprox Board report
A near-tragedy on a British Airways flight from Athens to London saw the plane nearly fly by a drone, which was found at an altitude of 9,600ft, a report reveals of the Daily Mail.
According to the report, the incident occurred at 4:30 pm on January 3 when the Airbus A321 carrying 180 passengers was queuing to enter the final landing strip at Heathrow Airport.
According to the publication citing the UK Airprox Board, the drone was found at a distance of only 1.5 meters from the wing of the plane and 9 meters from the glass of the cockpit.
Map with the point in which the incident occurred
It is noted that the software of the drones has a cutter so that they cannot climb above 400 feet but it is estimated that its user, who remains unknown, had bypassed this limitation by adding from the internet and extra batteries. The authorities do not rule out the possibility that the drone operator wanted to fly the drone at such heights, 24 times above the permissible limit, in order to capture images from planes.
According to the report, the incident is considered Category A, a category that includes incidents of high risk for collision. The text of the report describes that the pilot “perceived an object to the right of the nose of the airplane. It was small but shaped like a drone. This object was over the right wing of the plane. The details were relayed immediately to Heathrow airport control tower with air traffic controllers informing the pilot of the British Airways plane behind.”
The pilot, according to the same report, rated it as “high” the risk of collision noting that the object was “extremely close” to the right side of the aircraft.
“The Board considers that the pilot's overall description of the incident depicts a situation where precautionary actions played a significant role in the incident and/or there was a specific risk of collision,” the report concludes.
For its part, a British Airways spokesperson said that “we take such incidents seriously and our pilots report them so that the authorities can investigate and to take the necessary measures”.
