A flight from the Isle of Man to London City had a near-miss with a Chinese lantern with ’a definite risk of collision’.

The lantern came within 100ft of a Loganair turboprop jet, operating on behalf of British Airways, a report by the UK Airprox Board has now revealed.

There were up to 50 passengers on board the Saab 2000 when the incident happened as it was flying at 20,000ft over Duxford, Cambridgeshire, on its descent towards London City on July 30 this year.

Airprox, which assesses near-misses involving aircraft, classed the incident as a category A conflict in its latest report.

It concluded: ’The pilot’s overall account of the incident portrayed a situation where providence had played a major part in the incident and/or a definite risk of collision had existed.’

The report was published on the same day that Gatwick airport was closed following reports of drones being sighted over the airfields.

Tens of thousands of passengers had their Christmas travel plans thrown into disarray as flights were halted - including easyJet services to and from Ronaldsway on Thursday.

New restrictions come into effect on January 1, 2019, that will prohibit drone flights within 5km of Isle of Man Airport.

Airprox said in its report on the July 30 incident, the pilot had reported an object resembling a Chinese lantern as it passed down and slightly above the left side of the aircraft.

Air traffic control was notified.

It said the board had been unable to determine the nature of the object reported and so agreed that the incident was best described as a conflict in Class A.

A British Airways spokesman said: ’The safety of our customers and crew is always our priority.

’We take such matters extremely seriously and encourage our pilots to report sightings so that the authorities can investigate and take the appropriate action.’