An unidentified flying object ‘the size of four toasters’ zipped past a British Airways plane, air safety officials have revealed.

The New York City-bound flight had only recently departed London Heathrow Airport on June 24 when it encountered the UFO.

The pilot told air traffic control that a drone had flown in the opposite direction about 50 feet above the plane’s right wing at 12.08pm.

The plane didn’t have to take any action to avoid the drone – it flew straight past the aircraft and the Boeing 777 arrived at its destination as planned.

The UK Airprox Board, which investigates aircraft proximity incidents, concluded that there was ‘no risk’ of a collision.

Though it classed the object as an A-grade risk, the highest category on the International Civil Aviation Organization’s safety score.

The warning system says A incidents can be ‘catastrophic’, causing ‘multiple deaths’.

‘Silver object moving very fast’ zips by plane, report says

The UK Aiprox Board said in its monthly report of close encounters that the plane was 6,000ft in the air when the ‘shiny, silver object’ whizzed past.

‘They said it was moving very fast, was probably of silver colour, metallic and reflective,’ the report said.

‘After an enquiry as to its size, the [pilot] reported to them that it was about the “size of four toasters”.’

The aircraft was flying over farmland around a mile southeast of the village of Burntcommon.

Nothing matched the object’s altitude and description, so investigators classed it as an ‘unk obj’, or unknown object.

‘The Board considered that providence had played a major part in the incident and/or a definite risk of collision had existed,’ the report added.

BA told : ‘We take matters such as these extremely seriously, and our pilots report these incidents so authorities can investigate them and take appropriate action.’

Have UFOs been seen before in the UK?

Nearly 90 UFOs have been spotted this year, according to the UFO Identified database.

Witnesses have claimed to see, among other things, ‘glowing orbs’ zooming over Heathrow and ‘orbs with halos’ behind trees in Peterborough.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) once operated a dedicated UFO desk but it was shut down in 2009 due to budget cuts.

Nick Pope was among the civil servants tasked with probing reports of UFOs, now often called unidentified aerial phenomena, in the 1990s.

Speaking before his death, Pope told Metro that many of the lights and balls were just stray paper lanterns.

‘In the end, we found about 80% or so of these sightings were misidentifications, 15% had insufficient data and 5% were unknown,’ he said.

‘That 5% doesn’t mean extraterrestrial, but as I always remind people, neither did we rule that out. It means unknown, no more, no less.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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