Plane has to swerve to avoid hitting unidentified object on descent into Toronto island airport

A Porter Airlines Dash 8 with 54 on board encountered a UFO at a height of about 9,000 feet as it was making its descent into the Billy Bishop Airport on Toronto Islands.

	1 of 2
In a statement Porter Airlines said: “The pilots noticed an object in the distance (and) as they approached the object, they realized it was very close to their flight path.” The pilots at first thought the object was a balloon but after debriefing decided it could have been a drone. At this stage the object has not been identified. Senior regional investigator for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, Peter Rowntree, said: “Nobody knows at this point. It happened so quick. We’ve got our work cut out trying to figure out what this unidentified flying object was. What did they encounter? It definitely wasn’t a bird. It was a fairly large object.” He said it was up to three meters wide. The plane was about 55 kilometers from the airport when the incident happened. Some incorrect initial reports actually had the plane hitting the object.

The sudden evasive action by the plane to avoid the object caused two flight attendants who were busy clearing the cabin for landing to receive minor injuries in the incident. On landing, they were taken to the hospital but then released according to a statement from Porter.

There are increasing numbers of close calls between planes and drones around the globe, especially near airports. Earlier this year, British Airways pilots claimed their aircraft was hit by a drone while approaching London's Heathrow Airport in the U.K. A spokesperson for London's Metropolitan Police said: “It transpired that an object, believed to be a drone, had struck the front of the aircraft.” The Airbus A320 had 132 passengers and 5 crew members. The plane landed safely and engineers found no damage and cleared the plane to fly again.

The Trudeau government is working to pass new regulations as the number of drones being operated grows in the hope of preventing more incidents such as this one in the future.