Drone that hit Heathrow plane may actually have been a plastic bag, official says

There was understandable alarm in the U.K. earlier in the week when a drone reportedly hit a passenger plane coming in to land at London's Heathrow airport. But after examining Sunday's events more closely, a government minister on Thursday speculated that rather than a drone, the object may have actually been a plastic bag. While there've been hundreds of apparent near misses between planes and drones over the last couple of years, initial news reports regarding the recent Heathrow incident suggested an actual collision had taken place for the first time. The aircraft, a British Airways Airbus A320 with 132 passengers on board, landed safely. The pilot had said that as the plane came in on its final approach, it hit what may have been a drone flying at an altitude of about 1,700 feet.