An errant tweet mistakenly declared the Queen of England dead on Wednesday, despite her merely paying having a routine check-up.

The offending tweet has since been removed from the internet but screenshots show a multimedia producer named Ahmen Khawaja reporting “Queen Elizabrth (sic) has died: @BBCWorld”.

Ms Khawaja was wrong, and retracted her statement which sources inside the BBC say could have been the unintended outcome of a drill.

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The BBC regularly rehearses what it would do in the case of a royal death, and at the time of the tweet it was holding one.

It has been suggested Ms Khawaja overheard the drill and made the connection.

Adding to the confusion, The Queen was at King Edward VII Hospital in London getting a normal check-up.

False Alarm: Have deleted previous tweets!!

— Ahmen Khawaja (@AhmenKhawaja) June 3, 2015

Buckingham Palace issued a statement confirming the health of the Queen in response to the rumours, which spread like wildfire on social media.

“I can confirm that the Queen this morning attended her annual medical check-up at the King Edward VII’s Hospital in London,” a palace spokesman said, as quoted in The Telegraph.

“This was a routine, pre-scheduled appointment, the Queen has now left hospital.”

Ms Khawaja apologised “for upsetting anyone” and claimed her phone was left unattended, suggesting the tweet was sent by another party. She called it a “silly prank”.

The BBC has signalled it would look at disciplinary options for Ms Khawaja.