A passenger plane bound for Rhodes nearly collided with a drone while flying over the UK for several minutes.
Pilots of an Easyjet Airbus A320 spotted an unidentified flying object while flying at an altitude of 16,000 feet over the coast of Kent. According to The Sunthe pilots noticed black cylindrical deviceheading towards them at 400 miles per hour, about 20 miles west of Dover. The plane that took off from Gatwick Airport was on a London-Rhodes flight at the time with 180 passengers on board.
One of the two pilots on the plane heard the impact and feared the drone had crashed into the Airbus A320. According to the same reports, the drone “flashed” past the bottom of the plane’s cabin but did not collide with it, according to an inspection of the outside of the plane’s cabin when an Easyjet airbus landed in Greece.
The maximum altitude the drone can fly is 400 feet (121 m), so the drone flew 40 times the legal limit. The captain told air traffic controllers: “We almost shot down the drone. We are talking about less than ten feet. We do not think we hit it, there was a little noise, we will return.”
After examining the aircraft during landing, the captain did not find any damage and stressed: “I can confirm that we did not shoot down the drone. Probably the noise that the first officer heard came from the cabin of the aircraft.
The British Air Accidents Board, which is responsible for investigating accidents, has categorized the incident as Category A, indicating a serious risk of collision. The council also said there is ample evidence that a cylindrical and black object found at 16,000 feet is highly likely to be a drone. Inexplicably? The pilot of the drone would have faced up to five years in prison for endangering the safety of the aircraft, unless, of course, it was a UFO.
EasyJet said the crew acted in accordance with standard operating procedures to ensure flight safety was not compromised.
Only one thing is not clear: why was this drone, flying at a speed of almost 700 km / h at an altitude of about 5 kilometers, not visible on the radar?
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