Chinook in near-miss with drone

An RAF  Chinook helicopter was in a near miss accident after it was seconds away from being downed in a collision with a drone as it came into land at a British base according to an accident investigation. The |£60m  twin-rotor aircraft was flying at 138mph when the drone was spotted as a faint image on radar by an air traffic controller on the ground. They immediately alerted the crew to the potential obstruction, which was hovering in the helicopter’s direct flight path.

One of the Chinook’s two pilots took over the controls when he realised his colleague was inadvertently steering towards a black drone only 130ft away. A major disaster was averted as the aircraft was steered to safety before landing at RAF Oldham in Hampshire home to three Chinook squadrons.

The pilot later said the risk of collision was high and said the drone could have caused considerable damage that could have led to a loss of the aircraft if it had impacted either the transmissions, the associated hydraulic pipes, the rotor system or the cockpit.

The Chinook was flying at a height of 2,100ft two miles to the south of Farnborough, Hants, around 14:00 BST on August 16, 2016.

Drone have normally restricted to the maximum height of 400ft.

“ It was through good evaluation by the controllers and reactions from the aircrew that eliminated the chance of a collision occurring.