EasyJet plane carrying up to 180 passengers came within 65ft of hitting a drone

EasyJet plane carrying up to 180 passengers came within 65ft of hitting a drone, it emerged last night

  • Airliner was flying south of Edinburgh when it had a near miss with a drone
  • Investigating authority has now graded the incident among the most serious
  • They find that it was only through luck that drone missed the passenger plane 

An Easyjet plane carrying up to 180 passengers came within 65ft of hitting a drone, it emerged last night.

The near-miss on July 8 left the pilot of the Airbus A320 with no time to take evasive action as the jet approached Gatwick at 350ft, an inquiry report revealed.

Investigators rated it as a Category A incident, meaning there was a serious risk of collision.

An Easyjet plane carrying up to 180 passengers came within 65ft of hitting a drone, it emerged last night (stock image)

The near-miss on July 8 left the pilot of the Airbus A320 with no time to take evasive action as the jet approached Gatwick at 350ft, an inquiry report revealed (stock image)

The near-miss on July 8 left the pilot of the Airbus A320 with no time to take evasive action as the jet approached Gatwick at 350ft, an inquiry report revealed (stock image)

The plane was over a car park when the captain spotted the £3,000 drone.

What are the rules on flying drones? 

Drone pilots: 

  • Must not fly drones above 400ft (120m) and must keep a direct line of sight. 
  • Must not fly drones near emergencies such as car crashes, firefighting, and search and rescues. 
  • Can only fly drones during the day. 
  • Must not operate drones in restricted areas such as near airports.
  • Must not fly above crowded areas such as sporting events and beaches.

The UK Airprox Board report said if the autopilot had been engaged the crew believed ‘there was a very high probability they would have struck the drone’. 

It is unclear who flew the device. 

A report said the co-pilot then ‘looked out and also saw a drone, directly in front of the aircraft, slightly to the left at a range of about 100m.’

It added: ‘Visual contact was maintained with the drone as it passed down the left side of the aircraft at the same level.

‘The crew were unable to perform an evasive manoeuvre due to the speed of the event.

‘The first officer reported the drone sighting to air traffic control and the crew made a statement to the police after landing.

‘The crew believed that if the autopilot had still been engaged, and they were on the centreline, there was a very high probability that they would have struck the drone.’ 

How drones could tear up a plane or helicopter

Drones weighing as little as 400g can smash a helicopter windscreen, demonstrating how the devices pose a critical safety risk to aircraft.

One weighing 2kg could critically damage an airliner’s windscreen, according to research funded by the Department for Transport.

Scientists at the University of Dayton Research Institute flung a DJI Phantom 4 drone into the sky from a cannon to see what would happen when it collides with a Mooney M20 plane.

They worked to mimic a midair collision between a 2.1-lb drone and an airplane at a speed of 238mph.

They shot the drone into the air using a 2,800lb steel cannon with a 12-inch bore. 

Within three hundredths of a second, the drone smashed into the plane’s wing.

While many might think the drone would be destroyed upon impact, it actually tore open the plane.

The fast-spinning propellars on the drone ended up tearing through the plane’s wing, which damaged its main spar. For comparison purposes, the researchers also fired a similarly weighted gel ‘bird’ into a different part of the wing to see what its impact would be.

University of Dayton captured the crash using a 10,000-frame-per-second camera. They hope to conduct additional tests using similar and larger drones on other aerospace structures, including windscreens and engines, to show just how catastrophic drone collisions can be.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk