A PASSENGER plane preparing to land at Perth Airport has narrowly missed colliding with a drone, as authorities note a rise in ­incidents involving unmanned aircraft.

A Dash-8 chartered aircraft, coming from Kambalda, was coming in to land at Perth Airport just after 9am when the crew spotted a bright strobe light in its path at about 3800ft.

The pilot swerved and missed the object by about 20 metres, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau says in a report on the March 19 incident.

The De Havilland DHC-8 plane was about 23km northeast of Perth at an altitude of about 3800 feet when the crew spotted a bright strobe light, the report said.

The light appeared to track towards the aircraft and the four-person crew realised it was possibly an unmanned aerial vehicle, the ATSB said.

The pilot turned the aircraft to avoid crashing into the object, which passed about 20m horizontally and 100ft (30m) vertically from the aircraft.

“The pilot reported that the object was cylindrical in shape and grey in colour,” the report said.

It was in controlled airspace, but the crew did not receive a traffic collision avoidance system alert, the ATSB said.

Airspace below 3500ft was military restricted airspace and the Australian Defence Force was not operating any unmanned aerial vehicles in the area at the time, the report said.

The ATSB could not confirm the details of the object or identify any unmanned aerial vehicle operator in the area at that time.

The March 19 incident was followed by another three days later when a Westpac rescue chopper carrying five crew took off from Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital. A white light was spotted coming from a drone hovering 1000ft above Hunter stadium, where a football match was under way.

The unmanned craft began to move directly toward the helicopter, with the pilot forced to take evasive action.

On both occasions the ATSB could not find the operators of the drones.

“These people might just be having some fun … but they are breaking the rules,” investigations manager Neville McMartin said.

Unmanned aerial vehicles must operate below 400ft and at least 5km from any airport. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority said most complaints related to “first person view” aircraft, which have a fixed video and are controlled by someone on the ground watching a live feed.

The ATSB received its first ­report of an unmanned craft in October 2012, when operators lost control of an airship around Victoria’s Moorabbin airport. “These reports are a sign of things to come,” Mr McMartin said. There are a whole lot of issues we have to work through.”

“You can buy these things online and have them delivered to your home,” Mr McMartin said.