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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."
That's not a drone. That's an R/C model plane.
Hate them so much. Fuuuuuuck.
If it came within 200ft of a Boeing jumbojet I think we can assume it found itself a watery grave in Jamaica Bay.
The enemy of my enemy is quite possibly also my enemy. I've made a lot of enemies.
Hate them so much. Fuuuuick.
Do you really think anyone in the government flying these things around will admit to this?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
R/C model planes are much harder to legislate against.
So it's drone, dammit!
Sent from my ENIAC
described by the FBI as black and no more than three feet wide with four propellers
Sounds like a Parrot AR Drone with the indoor frame attached.
Well, Iran is the proud new owner of an RQ-170, maybe they decided to take it for a joyride over US airspace?
I wonder when there'll start to be some sort of crackdown on personal UAVs or RCVs. I've still not heard of any incidents of these being used to harm people*, but maybe this is the first incident. It's bound to happen at some point though, and I certainly expect a wave of copycats, accompanied some panic and backlash. The technology's probably not at that stage yet - would need larger payloads or much better automatic guidance for anyone to do much. I can't see it far off someone sticking a grenade on the front of one though for a cheap guided missile, or a ricin tipped spike and just fly one into someone. Might seem a bit far fetched, but there's certainly people out there with a will to do so.
Of course, what can be actually be done about them isn't clear. It'd be like trying to stop pirate radio, but potentially even more difficult - fully automated devices wouldn't need any radio link, so the only thing you could really do it stopping purchase or having some form of traceable identifiers.
* With the huge exception of military drones of course. Crime using RCVs is certainly not new, see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1112673/Remote-control-toy-helicopter-used-fly-drugs-prison.html
FBI needs to take action on the military and stop the drones from being used over the US. Do we feel safer now? We need laws to outlaw these drones from being used in our country.
It's a bit sad that I'm surprised the FBI response wasn't to shut down LiveATC.net.
Just as stupid and with the same potential casualties as the fucking morons who think it's a good idea to shine a laser into the cockpit of an aircraft. As previously noted by another poster, most real RC'rs are well aware of their responsibilities, so I can only imagine that this is the work of a complete wanker.
1) Nobody was supposed to see that drone. Since civilians obviously did, everyone is scrambling to act surprised about it.
2) They don't actually know whose drone it was.
You will know which it is by what happens to this story. If they figure out it belonged to any one of the various police-state departments the US government created and employs, the story will simply disappear- business as usual, nothing to see here. If it actually was a rogue drone, then whoever was flying it will probably get a story of their own in the near future.
...thinks it would be easy to set up a Straw Man situation by surrupticiously arranging an agency to do it, then announce to the media that some unidentified incident occurred, which in turn becomes a case for legislating against Joe Citizen being allowed to fly FPVs.
How long before all RC helicopters (and all hobby RC planes for that matter) will be banned ?
Mah bad. I built it with an Arduino and some motors from Radio Shack and I had no idea it could fly so high. What a rush!
Now that I know it works, I'll be continuing with my plan to airdrop 32 oz. beverage containers over the city... muhahahaha!
We already have problems with ground based idiots shining recreational lasers into aircraft cockpits. What hope for aviation when the recreational lasers are mounted on recreational drones? The US will long regret not having built an underground railroad network for safe consumer transport.
Regardless of whether this is an RC model or not, if this got sucked into an engine we'd have a repeat of the Hudson river landing (best case scenario).
Hey, Superman is not a drone! He's very much in control of himself.
In the good old days we called these UFOs.
That was just my iphone with a propeller kit.
Everybody on board that plane was a terrorist on the kill list.
If a quadcopter would be sucked into one of the jet engines, it would be shredded and burned to ashes and vapor without as much as a glitch. These engines are tested with frozen turkeys and the like. On the other hand, the RC pilot would have lost an expensive toy, probably with a camera on it, otherwise you do not fly it so close to an airplane, making it even more expensive. One would expect a pilot of such a craft to fly it with responsibility and common sense in mind. In that case, it could also simply be an accident. Flying the craft out of range, sender/receiver malfunction or another of many possibly failures. I think with the sequester going on, the US government has more important stuff on its mind than somebody flying a quadcopter near an airport.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez was found dead in his Caracas home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
How can we be expected to trust robots when they're already becoming terrorists?
when they upload the onboard camera footage to YouTube.
Are UFOs out of fashion now? I miss the old days of government-related conspiracy theories.
And X-Files.
The truth is out there.
Kamikaze drones save lives one at a time.
Why would something that is only 3ft wide nrrd 4 propellers ?
Unless its a scale model of a WW2 bomber or something.
It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's a drone.
How soon before Bloomberg bans all RC vehicles? This makes Cherry Coke look like broccoli.
Just wait until some property get's damaged, and people killed.
Who is going to be responsible?
It might be funny now, but farther down the time-line it's going to become insidious
Hobbyists will become the next terrorists.
The public will whine.
The media will drum up the public + government will kick in with solutions.
The Solutions will be you now live in HELL ON EARTH
Oath breakers
No Constitution
War
Pollution
Food Poison
Water Poison
Vaccine eugenics
You won't own property
You won't GROW food
You won't be independent
You won't live off-grid
More likely one of those 2700 MRAP's will mow you down, with the 2 billion DHS bullerts and military hardware
Meanwhile they want you to register your weapons and document your life, and c opy all your conversations
The real terrorists are one's who activated DHS.
There is some terrorism in the world it's true, but NOT this crap, this is scripted death squads, concentration camps and bankster theft and it ain't sustainable.
Oh yeah you fuckers said we were nuts about chemtrails too you oath breaking pieces of SHIT....
C.I.A survallance over New York, plane and simple. They are watching.
It probably wasn't my drone. Mine is black, has four propellers, and is only about one foot wide.
If the pilots and passengers didn't have anything to hide, why were they concerned?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I'm imagining some hobbyist is setting at home shitting themselves. It sounds like a GPS controlled version of a RC toy. Someone probably programmed it with something like Google Earth, but didn't have the information for what was safe air space. If the turbulence didn't turn it to confetti and it made it home, someone was in for a big surprise when they played back what it recorded.
Let's hope everyone doesn't overreact and this is just a case of "derp" on behalf of a curious explorer.
If it's not, and this is worse case scenario, this is about to get interesting. I edited myself from even voicing how this could go sideways.
Take the Red Pill.
FBI said it was looking to identify and locate the aircraft and its operator
...with their black, three foot wide, four propeller drones.
Andyway, 3' wide? That's tiny!
The quadcopter did not come within 200ft of the plane. The plane came within 200ft of the quadcopter. Quadcopters can't go near fast enough to intentionally get in the path of a plane going hundreds of miles per hour. The quadcopter operator was likely FPV flying (with a live camera that generally looks at the ground) and wandered near or into a flight corridor without knowing it. 1750 ft is too high for reliable from-the-ground visual flight for a quadcopter. Flight corridors aren't usually "narrow". Even within a flight corridor, the plane *could* be anywhere across a big area of sky. Hence this was far more likely to simply be accidental.
It's more akin to a stupid Cessna pilot accidentally wandering across commercial flight corridors without knowing it. It happens a couple of times a year, and isn't quite as newsworthy though it's far more dangerous due to the vastly greater size and speed of the Cessna (though a Cessna still could never intentionally get itself in front of an airliner with any reliability at that height and speed). The error here is that the quad operator was flying that high in a flight corridor (RC planes fly *under* flight corridors all the time). RC planes are generally supposed to fly under 500 ft. It is also a practical limit just due to the visibility from the ground. Hence the likelihood the Quad was FPVing.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m53hhanSLt1ru2qouo1_1280.jpg
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
These are not the drones you are looking for.
...become their permanent identities.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xlObdXF8VE
~2:00 mark, 5.5lb bird impact with turbine.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Be a good American and fight the government's spy plans by shooting down any drones you find flying in American airspace.
At the top of the article is a slide show of 12 photos of drones - none of which operate with four propellers. Journalism at it's finest.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It's a bitch when someone does it to you, isn't it mother fuckers?
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. You may not be able to kill a person with one from a mile away, but you sure as heck can shoot down a small sized drone with minimal chance of being caught...
There was a near miss between a German UAV and an Airbus A300 over Kabul, Afghanistan in 2004. And just like with midair collisions between piloted aircraft there's going to be a collision eventually. Put enough planes (of any type) into the air and give them enough time, and eventually two will collide.
This starts to sound like a bit of a scary potential attack vector... put a drone up in a flight path over a busy city... don't even want to think about how much damage that could do.
There's an R/C club right near one of the approach paths, about 4 miles west from JFK. We received from commercial pilots, unfamiliar with the area, reports of visual contact with our planes on almost monthly basis for YEARS. There's a lot of large (3m+ wingspan) and fast (200 mph+) planes flying there.
It never made a local nor national news, I think it was a Alitalia pilot that wanted to actually file a official incident report once about 7 years ago. But now with everybody running scared of "drones", it becomes a big deal.
If it were Jews, we'd just blame the Muslims and invade some random country that insulted the commander-in-chief's daddy.
What's the difference between an unmanned drone and a pilotless drone?
Of course it's more of a statement than something they're going to be able to enforce if the Feds/State have different plans, but a local community here in MN banned drones from its airspace for 2 years: http://sunpatriot.com/2013/02/28/st-boni-acts-to-protect-its-airspace-against-drones/
St Boni has the highest point in Hennepin County (the major urban county in MN) and aviation uses their water tower for calibration and navigation. The Mayor/Council noted that two test labs in Minnesota have been testing them and certifying drones based on the Military standards, kind of like the UL, or CE mark. Having a fairly strong stance on Constitutional rights and privacy issues of Citizens vs govt, they banned warrentless flights for 2 years pending a transparent discussion of standards for such intelligence-gathering mechanisms.
âoeWe support taking a step back for two years and let the state and county come up with policies and procedures for how to do it,â said St. Boni Mayor Rick Weible. Council member Joe Arwood added, âoeWe donâ(TM)t want to exclude a lawful purpose (for use of drone technology), but we want to be aware when it happens.â
-Styopa
it comes within 200 feet according to the FBI who has a very vested interest in making sure nobody else has toys to play with. From yesterday: "“The pilot did not take evasive action. The flight landed safely," according to the FAA.". 200 feet=60yards.. Either it was a tiny toy (unlikely at that elevation) or it was far enough away the pilot felt no need to take action. Birds are bad enough around NYC, no pilot wants a 'drone' sucked into his engine on approach.
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.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
There isn't much prospect of either a dronageddon or of a government crackdown, because the legislative response to drones is sufficiently obvious, effective and doesn't step on the toes of powerful people. One thing governments are generally pretty good at is regulating airspace.
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. You may not be able to kill a person with one from a mile away, but you sure as heck can shoot down a small sized drone with minimal chance of being caught...
I'm thinking you've never shot anything at a distance. Certainly never anything airborne at a distance. Chances of hitting a small, fast moving drone, with a handheld semi-auto rifle are, effectively, nil.
During WWII naval forces expended tens of thousands of rounds of AA shells for every full size aircraft engaged.
m
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
Apple's UAVs for gathering aerial photography for maps fly below 15,000 feet. While higher than reported, maybe one had hardware or software problem that caused it to be lower than intended?
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.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Is "digest" really the term of art for that?
Gross-awesome.
$ echo "ceci n'est pas une pipe" | sed -Ee 's/(eci n|pas )//g'
The motors likely have steel bits at the very least and the servos might as well. Other parts of the craft may be carbon fiber or titanium, and regardless, I don't think you want any foreign objects sucked into a jet engine's impeller.
1) AND assault rifles. It's not a crusade btw. A large segment of the population has had enough with the ridiculously weapons and want the government to stop allowing their sale. You know, responding to what the people want.
2) Yes they are accurate. Are there more accurate fire arms? yes. But in the range of fire warms, they are above the middle.
3
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Begun, the drone wars have.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Crazy
Given that this incident occurred at a height (1750 feet) that is well outside the performance or transmit range of any commercial, civilian-available hobby drones or quadcopters, the theory that this was some J. Random Hobbyist can be safely ruled out.
Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true. Right?
So it stands to reason that this must have been a military or other government aircraft (DARPA research, CIA surveillance, etc.). No other entities have the ability to field a device that small, at that height, with those powers of flight.
Maybe the FBI should be interviewing themselves if they want to have a clue what's going on.
Maybe is was an R/C plane as others have suggested and possibly it had accidentally gotten out of range of the transmitter. I know technology has changed a great deal since I was in the hobby but it used to be that if your plane/buggy got out of range of your radio the servos would stay in whatever position they were in at last contact. Even at that time there were devices available that would put the servos in a pre-programmed position in that event. I assume this has probably been built into newer hardware but maybe not and certainly a failure is not out of the question.
Regardless of whether this is an RC model t, if this got sucked into an engine we'd have a repeat of the Hudson river landing (best case scenario).
What makes a weapon ridiculous? And how many people want them banned? If you want to end civilian ownership of firearms in the US then do it the correct way. Get a two-thirds majority of each chamber of Congress to pass a bill with the wording of a new amendment that explicitly states that not only does the second amendment exist but that civilian ownership of firearms is not allowed. Then get 38 states to pass it as well. Anything less is simply ignoring the "rule of law". Ignoring the rule of law in other areas has led to such idiotic beliefs that the government can look at my documents (without a warrant) if I ask Google to store them electronically but that a warrant is required if I print them and store them in a lock box in a vault at my bank. Seriously, stop picking and choosing which rights you want respected and which you don't. Start expecting every one of them to be respected.
Every drone is equipped with a TCAS. Every commercial plane is also equipped with a TCAS. The pilot would have been aware of this "drone" way before he was to see it. Something is not adding up.
OK, how about a computer controlled rifle?
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Well, the "ridiculously" applies here.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Just a FYI, if you (or anyone else) tries to Rambo a drone like this, you're going to kill anybody standing under the end of the parabolic arc your bullet takes since it'll come back at lethal velocity. Firing guns in the air is a stupendously stupid idea, and yes people have died like this.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I'm a Muslim, but I've never planned to bomb a plane. Am I doing something wrong?
That depends how you define wrong. If you mean as a decent human being then no. If you mean by not following your scriptures as interpreted by many Imams and practiced by tousands then yes.
Just to be quite clear I am not saying that you should plan to bomb a plane. I am saying that Islam is a (literally) abysmal religion that calls good evil, and wrong right.
OK, how about a computer controlled rifle?
Sure... just add:
AA rounds don't take out aircraft by hitting them normally. They usually get close and explode; The shrapnel damages the aircraft.
Sure, the above is probably something a moderately competent group of hackers could make, but it wouldn't be reasonably affordable or repeatable.
You're better off converting a model rocket to a home made Sparrow...
m
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
Shouldn't the jet wash have destroyed it?
TFA was so short I found myself in the comments, which were instantly entertaining. The one from HyperionX really stood out: " It's a great tactic. Pump out so much information that the government is overwhelmed because it can't track everyone! " Yeah, that is a real problem for Amazon and ebay, too, with their multiple petabyte size databases, those searches take sooo long, almost a half a second in some cases...
I've seen some very impressive auto-tracking fire control systems on youtube that use paintball guns. It's not great leap to give a system like that longer range vision (zoom lens from DLSR) and attach it to a firing system with enough oomph to knock down a drone. Maybe 2-3 months for a hobbyist in their garage, far less once DIY plans are published on the Intar-tubez.