TSB closes investigation into near-collision involving Porter flight and UFO

For the foreseeable future, the object that nearly hit a Porter Airlines flight from Ottawa to Toronto on the morning of November 14 will remain, literally, an "unidentified flying object."

The Transportation Safety Board says it has closed its investigation into the incident, which say the pilot take evasive maneuvers 8,300 feet in the air, as the flight approached Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport.

"We've assessed all of the information gathered and decided to classify this occurrence as a Class 5 Occurrence," TSB spokesperson Chris Krepski tells CFRA. "This means that a summary of validated facts will be added to our database for statistical and trend analysis, but no further investigation for formal report will be produced by the TSB."

Krepski says the TSB was unable to positively identify the object.

"What we do know," Krepski says, "is that the description and size of the object does not match any known commercial or consumer unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV. The occurrence location, which is 10 miles from the shore at 8,300 feet is beyond the range capabilities of most commercial and consumer level UAVs."

Krepski says if further information comes to light they'll assess it and see if any further action on the TSB's part is warranted.

"We weren't able to positively identify the object, so for now it's a closed event," Krepski says. "But if something comes up in the future, we'll take a look at it."

The incident happened around 7:30 a.m. Monday, November 14. Two flight attendants suffered minor injuries as the plane swerved to avoid the object, but none of the 54 passengers aboard the flight were hurt.

TSB Senior Regional Investigator Peter Rowntree told CFRA's Ottawa Now with Evan Solomon the pilots only had "a couple of seconds" to react after seeing the object.