NEWS · NORTH SEA, UK

RAF pilots’ near-misses with black ‘drones’ over the North Sea stay unexplained, UK Airprox Board says

Two RAF crews reported black, circular objects passing within a few hundred feet in February. The Board’s own record is more cautious than the ‘drone’ headlines: it calls both unknown objects.

October 26, 2026 · 3 min read · By The Phenomenon Files

Two Royal Air Force pilots reported black, circular objects passing within a few hundred feet of their aircraft over the North Sea in February 2026, and the UK Airprox Board says it could not work out what either one was. The cases reached the headlines on October 16, when The Telegraph reported them from RAF incident logs, and outlets including the Evening Standard and LBC called the objects drones. The Board’s own record, drawn up for its meeting on April 22, is more cautious: it lists both as “unknown objects.”

What the pilots reported

On February 18, at about 10:15 UTC, an RAF Airbus Voyager tanker was refuelling a Typhoon about 32 nautical miles north-north-east of Cromer, Norfolk, at flight level 160 (roughly 16,000 feet) in good visibility. According to the Board’s summary, the pilot in the captain’s seat, who was not flying at the time, saw a black, circular object pass about 100–150 feet directly above the aircraft, so close it made them “instinctively duck.” They told air traffic control it was a drone, and the Swanwick military controller’s report records the pilot describing it as fast-moving and tracking west. Nothing showed on radar. No one else on the flight deck saw it, but one of the Typhoon pilots did, and agreed with what the Voyager pilot saw, its direction and how close it passed. On reflection, the Voyager pilot said, it was impossible to be sure it was a drone, and it could have been a balloon or something similar. The Board’s sheet classes this one as a near collision with an “unknown object or balloon” rather than with a drone.

Five days later, at about 15:21 UTC on February 23, a Typhoon pilot in Danger Area D323A over the North Sea was flying straight and level at 12,000 feet and 300 knots between manoeuvres with another aircraft. The pilot reported a circular black object, “similar in size to a car tyre,” passing directly above, about 300 feet up and tracking east, then reported an Airprox a few minutes later. The controller’s note of the radio call says the object was relayed as a drone 200 feet above the jet, with the Typhoon at 12,500 feet, small differences from the pilot’s written report.

What the Board decided

For both cases the Board said the reported altitude and/or description left it “unable to determine the nature” of the object. It graded the Voyager encounter Category B, meaning safety had been much reduced below the norm, to the extent that it had not been assured. It graded the Typhoon encounter Category C: safety was reduced, but there was no risk of collision. The pilots had rated the risk higher, at medium for the tanker and high for the Typhoon.

The sheet shows how the Board separates cases. For a Boeing 787 on final approach to Heathrow on February 8, and an Airbus A321 over Fulham on March 16, it said the reported altitude and/or description were sufficient to indicate the object “could have been a drone.” It did not use that wording for either RAF case.

What the coverage added, and where it differs

The Evening Standard and LBC, relaying The Telegraph, said the RAF logs show both sightings were passed to the police and that “multiple different external investigations” had been launched; LBC says the second report went to North Yorkshire Police. The Standard, citing The Telegraph, says one was reportedly spotted hovering at about 17,000 feet, which it calls 40 times the legal limit for commercial drones; an LBC photo caption gives the same height but does not mention hovering. The Board’s sheet records no hover: the controller was told the first object was fast-moving, and the tanker itself was at about 16,000 feet.

In a general statement quoted by both the Standard and LBC, which did not address the incidents directly, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said reports of drone sightings are “not necessarily hostile” and that “we remain highly vigilant,” but that the Ministry does not comment on specific threat assessments. The coverage set the cases against suspected Russian drone activity around Western air bases. Neither the Board’s record nor the Ministry’s statement links these two incidents to it.

The cases sit in a busy category. At its September 2026 meeting the Board discussed 21 Airprox reports, 13 of them involving drones, models or unknown objects. For these two, no record we found identifies the objects. In the first case the controller saw nothing on radar; the Board’s entry for the second does not mention radar.