An Aero Vip flight coming in to land at Cascais aerodrome had to dive out of the way to avoid hitting a drone flying at 300 metres altitude.
The incident above Cascais Aerodrome happened at around 6.00pm on Friday evening with Captain Jorge Cernadas later stating: "On the approach Cascais I glimpsed an object that I thought was a bird. As I approached, I realised that it was a large, four-rotor drone. I had to dive to avoid a collision with the drone, which passed about five meters above the left wing."
Cernadas said that the incident occurred about 300 metres above sea level in the flight path, two or three minutes from landing.
The Dornier 228, with 14 people on board, was coming in to land and already had its wheels down.
The pilot classified the incident as "very serious," reported the incident to the control tower of Cascais Aerodrome and will follow up with a report to the Accident Investigation service
The plane had taken off from Portimão and was heading to Cascais with 12 passengers and two crew on board. This was the regular Aero Vip flight run by the Seven Air Group which puts on the Bragança-Vila Real-Viseu-Cascais-Portimão air service, underwritten by taxpayers.
This is the second drone incident this week involving commercial flights in near misses and the eighth since the beginning of the year.
On Wednesday June 15th, a 130-passenger TAP Airbus just missed a drone at 700 metres above sea level as it prepared to land at Lisbon Airport.
On June 1st, a plane with 160 passengers that was preparing to land at Oporto airport almost collided with a drone at 450 metres altitude, forcing the pilots of a Boeing 737-800 to perform several emergency manoeuvres.
The National Civil Aviation Authority laws prohibit drones to be flown above 120 metres above the ground so as to "minimise interaction with general aviation" and drones certainly are banned from near airports.
With many of those in control of drones disregarding the law and basic safety issues, it seems just a matter of time before there is a collision.
Comments
Perhaps because it would be all too easy for people to simply import one from a country that does not have such rules?