A suspected drone came within 50 feet of crashing into a British Airways plane as it departed Heathrow for India, a report has revealed.
The incident on February 26 at 10,500 feet could be the highest-ever near miss recorded between a BA plane and a drone.
The near miss just before 2.50pm involved a Boeing B787-8 Dreamliner carrying more than 200 passengers, according to an aviation safety report.
The flight had departed Heathrow minutes earlier for Chennai in India.
The UK Airprox Board, which reviews safety incidents, rated the near-miss as a Category A risk, the riskiest level.
A report said the pilot “looked up to see an object approaching dead-ahead.”
“They were confused as it was not an aircraft or a bird, and they were startled,” the report said.
“The object was closing rapidly, and then clearly apparent as a medium sized quadcopter with four downward facing blue lights.
“It approached almost head-on, slightly to the right-hand side.”
The pilot informed air traffic control, who reported the pilot was seeing a drone with blue lights “straight down the middle”.
The controller informed pilots of aircraft on the same flightpath so they could keep an eye out for the drone.
Drones are normally legally restricted to flying at a maximum height of just 400ft.
The report concluded: “The Board considered that the pilot’s overall account of the incident portrayed a situation where … a definite risk of collision had existed.”
It comes after a separate UK Airprox Board report revealed that a suspected drone came within just a metre of a plane’s wing-tip while approaching Heathrow at 1100 feet on March 2.
That incident was also reported to air traffic control “and the local police came to consult with the Captain when on the ground.”
It was not clear which airline the pilot was flying for.
A British Airways spokesperson said: “We take such matters extremely seriously and our pilots report incidents so that the authorities can investigate and take appropriate action.”
