A commercial airline pilot experienced a near-death experience on a close-range encounter with a mysterious disc-shaped object as he flew to London Gatwick Airport in a baffling aviation incident. The plane narrowly missed a “flying saucer” or advanced drone flying too close to the right wing of an Airbus A319 passenger jet as it was descending toward London Gatwick Airport, a safety report by Metro.uk said that the flight was on the runway and banking and making a left turn and there was a ‘flying saucer’ which took place with a large object and close enough to strike in the right wing of the plane for the pilot to see.
The object was in the exact opposite direction at the same altitude as the airliner descending and estimates were about 100-300 feet away from the aircraft. The bizarre encounter was investigated by the UK Airprox Board, a non-governmental organisation that monitors near-miss events and safety risks in British airspace. In the monthly meeting report published by the board, the pilot said a disc-type object flew alarmingly close to them at the same level past the right wing when they were turning and descending over the Sussex countryside near Hangcross, about 7 miles south of Gatwick Airport.
Describing the strange object, the flight crew observed that it had a flat disc shape and darker markings on its outer rim. Although the pilot and crew were convinced that the object was an unusual or advanced drone, they were unable to determine its identity, classification or origin. The airliner was very close to the unknown object but the pilot was not forced to perform any emergency evasive moves, because the commercial airplane was already in its pre-planned turning process.
However, air traffic controllers gave a general advisory warning to ensure safety and there were no other pilots in the vicinity of the object that saw the unknown object. In its final report, the UK Airprox Board concluded that the altitude and unusual description given by the flight crew could not definitively determine the nature of the object. The safety margins had a temporary decrease during the incident, but no real danger of a mid-air collision had existed.
