The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force reported two unidentified drone sightings in British skies, according to reports. The incidents were described as
"near misses" which took place days apart- during simulated air combat training and air-to-air refuelling excercise over the North Sea. Reports said, one of the mystery objects was spotted at an altitude of 17,000ft, more than 40 times the legal height limit for commercial drones. Incident logs seen by this newspaper show that the RAF reported the sightings to police and that “multiple different external investigations” are ongoing. The incidents occurred amid growing fears that hostile powers are using drones to spy on the West, said reports. Weeks after the RAF sightings in February, the US armed forces were put on high alert after unidentified drones were spotted at Fort McNair, a military outpost in Washington DC where senior US government officials live, according to reports. Earlier this year, defence experts said that drones spotted over US air bases in Norfolk and Suffolk were linked to a Russian ship stationed just off the coast. The RAF encounters also took place days before the start of the US war with Iran. Newly disclosed incident logs reveal that the first near-miss occurred on Feb 18, when an RAF Airbus Voyager tanker was refuelling a Typhoon fighter jet off Cromer, Norfolk, said reports. The unidentified object passed so close to the tanker that its pilot instinctively ducked. According to audio recordings reviewed by investigators reveal how the Voyager’s commander reported the sighting to military controllers. “Uh yeah, just had something go overhead of us – potential drone at one seven zero – have you got anything on your screen?” the pilot asked the RAF radar controller overseeing the refuelling exercise. “One seven zero” is aviation code for an altitude of 17,000ft, the height at which the aircraft were flying. The controller said he could not see the drone on radar, prompting the pilot to reply: “Okay that’s copied it was, uh, it was a pretty small uh I would say kind of size of a drone and travelling east to west literally just went straight overhead," said reports. He added: “Yeah, just uh chatting to [the Typhoon being refuelled] ‘cause they also saw it uh uh kind of estimated between us about 100 to 150 feet above us directly overhead.” In a subsequent report, the pilot said: “The proximity was such that it made me instinctively duck and was notified to ATC as a drone.” The second incident occurred on Feb 23, when a Typhoon was practising dogfights with another jet and its pilot spotted a “black circular object (similar in size to a car tyre) pass directly above him”, according to a Defence Aviation Safety Occurrence Report filed immediately afterwards. (Based on a report by The Telegraph)
