Drone came within 5 metres of passenger jet at Liverpool airport

A passenger jet taking off at Liverpool airport narrowly avoided a collision with a drone that came within 5 metres (16ft) of the aircraft's wingtip, an investigation has found. The pilot spotted the large, black and yellow drone immediately after the Airbus A319 took off, but it was so close there was nothing he could do to avoid it, he told a UK Airprox Board review, which found that "chance had played a major part" in avoiding a collision. The drone pilot could not be found. But members of the board who wrote a report on the incident said it should have been obvious that the unmanned vehicle was endangering the passenger jet, "even if the operator was not'aviation-minded'". It was one of four near misses in a month between drones and commercial passenger airlines recorded by the UK Airprox Board.