A drone "narrowly avoided" crashing into a passenger plane as it flew near The Shard, it has been revealed.

The Airbus 320, which had 165 passengers on board, was making its final approach to Heathrow over central London when it was involved in a "very near miss".

The drone, described as black and about 50cm wide, was spotted from the right flight deck window at about 12.45pm on 18 July, the UK Airprox Board (UKAB) report into the incident said.

The plane was flying at an altitude of 4,900ft near the 1,016ft high skyscraper, which is the tallest building in western Europe.

The crew said the drone had "probably" passed above the right wing and the horizontal stabiliser, found on the tail of the plane.


The UKAB report said: "Members agreed that this incident appeared to be a very near-miss and that the drone operator should not have been flying in that location at that altitude."

It added that the account given of the incident "portrayed a situation where a collision had only been narrowly avoided and chance had played a major part".

It deemed the incident to be in the most serious category of risk and said the drone operator had not been traced.