A plane taking off from Stansted had a near miss with a ‘silver and sparkly’ party balloon.

The incident happened on June 3 when the BE200 aircraft was leaving Stansted Airport.

At 1,000ft the pilot reported seeing a ‘elongated silver and sparkly party balloon.’ In a report to the UK Airprox Board the pilots said there was ‘no time to react’ but the balloon ‘just missed the port wing, passing slightly underneath’.

The incident was reported to Air Traffic Control at Stansted and the flight continues without any other incidents.

After reaching their destination they given an update by by Air Traffic Control.

The message said: “Just to let you know the party balloon turned out to be a number 7 and landed on the runway just after you departed".

The UK Airprox Board said: “The board considered that 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.”