Drone Comes Within 200 Feet of Airliner Over New York

New submitter FoolishBluntman sends this quote from CNN: "An unmanned drone came within 200 feet of a commercial jet over New York, triggering an FBI appeal to the public for any information about the unusual and potentially dangerous incident. The crew of Alitalia Flight 608 approaching John F. Kennedy airport on Monday reported the sighting. 'We saw a drone, a drone aircraft,' the pilot can be heard telling air traffic controllers on radio calls captured by the website LiveATC.net. ... The unmanned aircraft, described by the FBI as black and no more than three feet wide with four propellers, came within 200 feet of the Boeing jetliner. The FBI said it was looking to identify and locate the aircraft and its operator. A source with knowledge of the incident says investigators interviewed the pilot and others on the Alitalia plane."

Comments

That's not a drone

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a drone. That's an R/C model plane.

Re:That's not a drone

[Anonymous Coward]

It was less than 3 miles from the airport and at 1750 ft altitude. Your average R/C aircraft pilot wouldn't be that stupid unless he/she is intent on getting in trouble.... Most R/C hobbyists are surprisingly aware of the laws related to their hobby. This sounds more like a daredevil intentionally getting near the flightpath... Maybe even using FPV with one of the newfangled quadcopters, 'cause at 1750 ft your 3ft aircraft is going to look more like a spec in the sky than something you can easily control.

Re:That's not a drone

[cyn1c77]

That's not a drone. That's an R/C model plane.

It's amusing that you think there's a difference between the two.

Re:That's not a drone

[peragrin]

one simple one.

a drone is flown by camera's and a video downlink.

an RC plane is flown from the ground by the pilot's eyes.

RC plane's rarely get more than a 1000' feet away as they become very hard to control.

Re:That's not a drone

[Anonymous Coward]

The technical difference between the two has already been mentioned by others as a response to your post. Most sheeple (such as yourself) think of drones as something from the military. So now calling all R/C model planes/copters as drones is going to push more restrictions into a great hobby. It's typical, assuming this was just an R/C quadcopter then one idiot is going to ruin it for the thousands of others. The retarded media doesn't help either. Check out the pictures CNN linked to the article. So the average sheeple (did I mention that's you) will have no problem accepting new laws banning any R/C flying model.

It's a drone dammit

[Press2ToContinue]

R/C model planes are much harder to legislate against.

So it's drone, dammit!

FBI

[FrostedWheat]

It's a bit sad that I'm surprised the FBI response wasn't to shut down LiveATC.net.

I smell a rat

[Ozoner]

How long before all RC helicopters (and all hobby RC planes for that matter) will be banned ?

Re:I smell a rat

[asmkm22]

They've been limited to 400 feet and within site of the operator for a long time now. If this truly is an RC aircraft, then it's clearly well beyond that established rule, considering it was spotted at nearly 2,000 feet. The operator is an idiot, "plane" and simple.

Re:Iran

[Anonymous Coward]

Deliberately sending a plane full of passengers to their deaths is definitely in the Muslim sphere of operations. Christians would be more inclined to ask them to repent and accept Jesus as their savior. Muslims just want to kill the nonbelievers.

In a post 9/11 World, I am a terrorist

[tekrat]

Seriously.
The things I did as a kid would now be labeled terrorism today. I used to live right near Kennedy Airport, in Rosedale Queens. I remember 747's and Concordes so low you could almost touch them.

Don't you think we shot off Estes model rockets? Don't you think we flew kites, *trying* to get them sucked into engines? And don't even get me started on the things done during July 4th -- all I'm going to say is "hydrogen filled balloons". You figure out the rest.

My point is: The crap I did as as kid, that went largely ignored by the authorities, would now make national news, and I'd be hauled off to jail practically every weekend. Some kids were simply using a radio controlled flying toy, and it wandered into the approach path. Big freaking deal.

I think the time I used a Sandhawk model rocket (D engine), glued the nosecone in place and filled it with tin-foil strips was far worse than what these kids did.

But you know, 1977 isn't 2012.

Re:Now it all makes sense.

[CrimsonAvenger]

The government's crusade against Assault rifles is not to protect innocents, it's to protect Drones. Despite the rather small .22 caliber round, they're highly accurate and long range.

1) The government is NOT crusading against "assault rifles", they are crusading against semi-automatic rifles that LOOK LIKE assault rifles.

2) No, they're NOT highly accurate in and of themselves. Some of them are notoriously inaccurate.

3) No, they're NOT long range. Not by rifle standards, anyway. My .30-06 single-shot can push a bullet farther than my mini-14 can, by a considerable margin. Note that smaller calibre tends to mean more drag (larger surface area to mass ratio), which tends to mean that they lose both speed and accuracy quicker than a typical hunting round.

Contrary to popular rumour, we didn't switch to 5.56 because it was a super-powerful, incredibly accurate round. We switched because a soldier could carry more of them, and because they were capable of a disabling wound at battlefield ranges (typically a couple hundred yards or so).

Unlike our previous round, the 7.62 NATO, which weighed about three times as much, and could inflict a disabling wound out past 400 yards, if you bothered to shoot at someone that far away with your rifle.