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An unmanned aerial drone narrowly missed an Air Canada Jazz aircraft by less than 60 metres during its approach to land at Calgary International Airport on Monday.

“It was close enough to the plane that HAWCS (police aircraft) went in for look,” said Calgary police Sgt. Paul Cuthill, who said that their helicopter was dispatched after the pilot complained about the drone.

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With drones becoming easier and cheaper to obtain, Transport Canada is charting a rapid increase of incidents at airports, with 40 incidents being reported in the first 24 weeks of 2016, as opposed to a total of 43 incidents in all of 2015.

While the result of an aircraft actually hitting a drone is still unclear, aeronautic experts have theorized that a strike at a bad spot could cause an airliner to crash.

Police can arrest drone pilots if they are caught putting aircraft at risk by flying within nine kilometres of an airport.