Vaccine mission in ‘drone’ near miss

A PLANE believed to be carrying one of Britain’s most senior civil servants on a mission to protect the vaccination programme came within 100ft of a potentially catastrophic crash with a suspected drone.

The BAE-146 jet – an RAF aircraft used by members of the Royal Family and Government Ministers – was returning to the UK from Brussels on March 23 when the pilots spotted a 3ft device flying ‘extremely close’.

A report by the UK Airprox Board, which investigates near misses, says the suspected drone was flying at 4,000ft – ten times higher than the legal maximum height – and the jet’s pilots reported that it ‘appeared to be within 50ft to 100ft above their altitude and passed just to the starboard side of the aircraft’.

It is understood that passengers included Sir Tim Barrow, Political Director of the Foreign Office, who had been sent to Brussels after the EU threatened to block exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the UK. Sir Tim, who was previously ambassador to the Ukraine, Russia and the EU and a key figure in the Brexit talks.

The plane was flying at 175mph –- too fast for the pilots to be certain it was a drone – but air crew at RAF Northolt in West London alerted police.