Footage Reveals Drone Aircraft Nearly Downed Passenger Plane in 2004

Newly released footage, writes reader Wowsers, shows that in 2004 "A German drone aircraft was within meters of bringing down a passenger aircraft with 100 people on board. The link shows stills from onboard the drone. The incident had been hushed up for nine years, and is creating waves in Germany now the footage has been leaked out."

Comments

"and is creating waves in Germany now the footage"

[Anonymous Coward]

I have searched for this in german web pages. Beside aero.de and spiegel.de there is next to NO german web pages mentionning this and a lot of english pages. In fact it isn't even on google news in german...

Yes it is real

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not a Photoshop. The drone is not equiped with an automatic preventation system against collisions. The accident nearly happened in Afghanistan. The whole discussion came up by the mistakes which were made and the money which was spend on the Eurohawk project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_Hawk)

Re:Is it Real?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

As best I can tell, the footage is from the forward-facing camera, whose view is slightly obscured by the nose-antenna-harpoon-thing(technical term) visible on the front of the drone in this shot.

That would presumably also be present in competent fake footage; but it is consistent with the line of sight that you'd infer from the drone's layout, and from the shots on the manufacturer's puff page.

Newly released footage?

[Anonymous Coward]

The video on YouTube is dated Dec 2006...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NOar22TX2k

Re:Newly released footage?

[Sockatume]

99% of the Daily Mail's web content is stuff they found on the internet at lunch time, so I assume "newly released" means "someone just emailed us this with some cat memes".

Well, we're waaaaaaiting.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The only way flying cars for people will work is with massive computerized control, which is being built into ground cars, too. Best get on with it.

Of course, this one being military grade could probably shut it off anyway, if it had it.

Re:We need a box which scans for drone video

[Anonymous Coward]

For fuck's sake, the SUBJECT BOX is for a SUBJECT, not the start of your god damned sentence.

It is going to be a when, not an if.

[cozytom]

Current technology won't separate the aircraft well enough. The drones are not about to see and avoid like people. Think of control delays (speed of light seems pretty fast until you realize the pilot is thousands of miles away, you have to get the video image to them, and then the pilot has to react, then the reaction command has to get back to the aircraft, it isn't seconds, but certainly many milliseconds).

Then you can also see how fast the two aircraft are converging. It was easy to miss the little dot, and it was really darn big by the time the drone could make it out. Of course by then, there wasn't much either could do. And what is with that big antenna or whatever blocking the view?

One day a drone will hit a passenger carrying aircraft. Who is gonna scream then? Lets let the technology catch up, and not put these things in civilian airspace.

Re:It is going to be a when, not an if.

[ledow]

If you're flying ANYTHING in a manner where a millisecond response time matters, you're flying wrong. If you're flying CLOSE ENOUGH to things that a millisecond error in your response is critical, you're flying too close or completely off the flight plan.

This is why we don't take chances with air-traffic-control. It's not unusual for planes to be MILES away from each other and still be called a "near miss". At the sorts of speeds you're talking about, you cover WAY TOO MUCH space too quickly to be able to "get out of the way" - you should just not be within miles of each other.

As such, even UAV's are subject to the same kinds of safety distances. This one obviously a) wasn't on a flightplan, b) was straying off its flightplan or c) was misdirected by (or ignorant of) the local equivalent of air-traffic-control.

One day a drone will hit a passenger-carrying aircraft. One day a passenger jet will take off with both engines hatches undone, causing an engine failure and potential fire in both engines when it snaps off and damages the engine (London Heathrow, last week). One day someone will get on a plane and bomb it (not 9/11 - think Lockerbie back in the 1980's!). These things will all happen. The way we reduce casualties is NOT to ban planes (although, obviously, that works perfectly!!), but to apply controls. In this case, the controls already exist and are in place. If people didn't follow them? Take away their UAV pilot's licence.

Re:Is it Real?

[Sponge Bath]

It's the drone's genitalia, it was trying to mate with that big sexy mama.

This is why I love the Daily Mail (and readers)

[oobayly]

They never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Alarmist headline - check
Photo completely irrelevant to the story (32,250lb Eurohawk instead of this photo) - check
Incorrect description of events - check
Nonsensical sentence - "The drone passes under the left wing of the engine" - check

If you insist on reading a mindless tabloid, at least read one with T&A

Re:Who is in control?

[bickerdyke]

Giving away your location to other objects occupying the same airspace may be reasonable from a safety viewpoint. But would pretty much defeat a "secret" recon mission.

Now guess what's valued more by the military....

Re:Fixed

[CanHasDIY]

Footage Reveals Drone Aircraft Neatly Avoids Passenger Plane in 2004, Testament To Drone Technology.

Fixed.

From TFA:

The 88lb German 'Luna' drone was caught in air turbulence created by the Ariana passenger plane, before losing control and crash landing near the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Uh, yea, not really "neatly avoid[ing]" when the damn thing crashes as a result.

88lb

[SuperBanana]

You do realize that the frontal area of an airplane consists largely of the cockpit and engines, right? And that many areas of the plane's wing and body are slightly thicker than a soda can? Those "NO STEP" warnings are there for a reason. Have you seen what a single goose, about 6-7lb, can do to a passenger airliner? This thing weighs more than ten times that, and is substantially larger. If you think 88lb of hard material traveling at several hundred miles per hour won't cause serious-to-catastrophic damage to a passenger airliner, you're an idiot.

Re:Who is in control?

[sabri]

This was a small, 88lb (40kg) drone, not a Global Hawk. $2000 would be a significant chunk of its cost.

But a small cost considering the danger of airborne vehicles prone to turbulence. If a flock of geese can bring down an airliner, a human constructed chuck of metal can do the same. Geese don't have transponders, but we can include them in our devices. Your argument is flawed. Even if the cost of the transponder would double the cost of the drone, it would still be worth it, considering the potential loss of life (and the associated liability costs).

Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, mode S transponders are mandatory in all EU airspace at this time, but I'm sure some AC will be able to comment on that. It's been a while since I've touched the controls of an aircraft in the USSEU.

Re:Who is in control?

[Yer Mom]

I'm not sure Kabul counts as EU airspace, though...