Pilot of passenger jet forced to put the aircraft into a steep DIVE to avoid a 'UFO' that was 'too high to be a drone'
Daily Mail
November 14, 2016
A UFO nearly caused an air crash over Toronto when a passenger plane with 58 people on board came face-to-face with the mystery object.
Two flight attendants were injured when the pilots put the plane into a sudden nose-dive to avoid a head-on crash.
They later reported the object which appeared on their flight path might have been a hot-air balloon or a drone but aviation experts have voiced doubt over both theories.
The near-miss yesterday has been officially put down to a UAV, an unmanned aerial vehicle.
But one commercial pilot said on social media: 'A drone at 9,000ft? I don't think so.'
'Twenty years ago, a pilot seeing something unexpected might have reported a UFO, today it's a drone, but a drone a 9000ft, hmmm,' said another.
The strange incident happened as Porter Airlines Dash-8 turboprop plane from Ottawa was coming in to land in Toronto.
The Aviation Herald reported: 'The aircraft with 54 passengers and four crew was descending through 9,000 feet towards Toronto when the crew detected an unmanned aerial vehicle in their flight path and performed an evasive manouevres.
'The aircraft continued for a safe landing on Toronto's Billy Bishop City Airport about 11 minutes later. '
One flight attendant was lifted off her feet by the sharp nosedive and hit her head on the cabin ceiling. The other was flung on to the galley wall, striking her shoulder and straining her arm as she held on.
Both were taken to hospital once the aircraft landed safely but their condition was described as non-serious.
There was no evidence to suggest the aircraft collided with the UAV but it was grounded to make sure no damage had been caused by the sudden evasive action.
Peter Rowntree, a senior regional investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the pilots were unable to identify the object.
He told the Toronto Star: 'Nobody knows at this point (what it was). 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.'
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