LAM Mozambique Airlines has told Portuguese-language media that one of its aircraft was struck Thursday, possibly by a drone. In a Facebook post , the airline said that the crew of the Boeing 737 heard a bang, suggesting that some sort of “external body” hit the aircraft. The 737 was flying from Maputo and on approach to Tete airport when the incident occurred.

The Aviation Herald wrote that “a post flight examination revealed a drone had impacted the right hand side of the radome.” The website Mozambicano also reported the drone strike. The aircraft apparently landed safely with 80 passengers and six crew members on board.

In April 2016, British Airways reported that one of its aircraft may have hit a drone while landing at London Heathrow Airport.

Hundreds of near-misses have been reported at airports across the United States in recent years. Flying a drone within five miles of an airport in the United States is illegal, largely for safety reasons.

UPDATE Monday 4:17pm ET: Adam Lisberg, a spokesman for DJI, the world's largest drone manufacturer, e-mailed Ars over the weekend to say that "no one in any position of authority has claimed the plane struck a drone—the airline and regulators have simply said it was an object. This is a rumor that has gone out of control. There has never been a confirmed incident of an aircraft striking a drone, anywhere. Ever. The April incident at Heathrow was later determined to have not involved a drone—the most likely culprit was a plastic bag."

UPDATE Tuesday 5:20pm ET: Lisberg wrote back to Ars to point out that The Aviation Herald has updated its story. He e-mailed: "Please note that the aviation authorities now say nothing struck this plane at all—there was a structural failure in the radome." The Herald did not provide any further information, but simply cited a January 10 press conference in Maputo, and reported that "a foreign object damage was ruled out." Neither LAM Mozambique Airlines nor the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute provided any further information on their respective websites.