Airline chief slams ‘irresponsible idiots’ after drone near miss

A Loganair flight from Shetland was involved in a near miss with a drone as it approached Edinburgh Airport.

The device flew within 20 and 30 metres of the flight shortly after 1pm on Friday.

It sparked a strongly-worded response from the airline chiefs.

Managing director Jonathan Hinkles described the behaviour of those operating the drone as “incredibly dangerous”, and slammed those operating the drone as “irresponsible idiots”.

The drone is believed to have been piloted from either Bathgate or Armadale. The plane was flying at around 4,000 feet, and the pilot was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision.
Nobody was injured and the plane later landed safely at Edinburgh Airport.

“Flying drones into the path of aircraft is incredibly dangerous. New laws are being proposed to deal with this growing threat and our view is that they can’t come soon enough to deal with irresponsible idiots like this. Aircraft are designed to withstand bird strikes, but the hard material of a drone is a different matter.”