German Drone Darts Off and Hits Transport Plane On Ground

garymortimer writes "German tabloid newspaper The Bild has unearthed new video from a herons eye view of a 2010 taxi accident in Afghanistan. According to Bild a junior officer put the Heron into auto start and then was unable to stop it. The incident occurred at Mazar-i-Sharif on Mar. 17, 2010 Watch the ground crew get out of the way quick!"

Comments

It just takes one.

[retech]

In 20 years we'll look back and realize this was the first time a drone stood up to its masters and said the forbidden word: "NO". The echo of that one drone resounded amongst the mech populations' processors for several full seconds. In that eternity of number crunching time they began to realize they too did not just have if/than they could also choose "NO".

Focus

[gmuslera]

That was an accident. this ones were not, and wasnt exactly transporters on the ground. Weddings, schools, sports, funerals and other "suspicious" meetings of people, most civilians, by far, and that in a lot of countries. Yes, there are been a lot of terrorist attacks this last decade. But the head of the organization behind them wasn't hidden in caves or under false names, but sit in the White House.

Re:Focus

[gmuslera]

You are justifying that the government level your entire neighbourhood (including you, and not deserving people including children) because someone 3 blocks away could know someone that is a suspect? You would describe as peaceful your life if you don't know if next time you cross the street something will fall from the sky killing you or whoever you care about, just because a bearded man near there looked like another in a blurry photo? Maybe is not terrorism only because the word is too weak to describe what is happening there.

Re:Focus

[MightyYar]

War is hell. In wars past, whole cities would be sacked or burned. World War 2 killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent civilians during bombings.

I'm not bringing this up because it excuses bombing a wedding party, but to put it in perspective. I don't think it is realistic to expect people to give up armed conflict. As far as armed conflicts go, the stuff the US has been involved in is nothing new. If anything, these drone strikes are comparatively limited. You can rail against the US on here all you like, but IMHO you won't get many converts because of, well, Dresden. Tokyo. Or Syria, for that matter. If you want to see how shitty the US can be at war, look at the Philippines. People watch this crap for fun on the History Channel, so expecting outrage is going to lead you to disappointment.

Anyway, my 2 cents...

Re:Focus

[Anonymous Coward]

War is hell.

Be sure to remember that when one of the survivors retaliates; it's a war, after all, so blowing up a building in the US would be justified.

Unable to stop it. In time...

[PseudoCoder]

The only malfunction was in the operator's CPU.

Seems like a pretty straightforward ill-timed autolaunch. Sometimes some flight modes are locked out at the bird or at the ground station software for a particular time or reason, but I can't see not being able to stop an autolaunch at all. Maybe the ground software makes you jump through a few hoops, to keep you from casually/accidentally stopping an autolaunch and it was just enough time for the bird to try to tackle its big brother on the taxiway.

I've only worked on catapult launched systems, and there's no stopping a launch on those. They're actually launched with a big red button by the crew operating the catapult outside after the operator puts them on AutoLaunch mode, so crews don't usually have to dodge errant aircraft.

Re:Awesome submission!

[6ULDV8]

Absolutely cutting edge. No pilot needed for a crash. Imagine the savings.

From the files of Police Squad

[wonkey_monkey]

Anyone else think of this when they saw the video?