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Heathrow Plane In Near Miss With Drone
An anonymous reader writes with news about a near miss between a drone and a plane near Heathrow. "An unidentified drone came close to hitting a plane as it landed at Heathrow, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has confirmed. An Airbus A320 pilot reported seeing a helicopter-style drone as the jet was 700 feet off the ground on its approach to the runway at 1416 GMT on 22 July. The CAA has not identified the airline or how close the drone came to the plane, which can carry 180 people. It gave the incident an 'A' rating, meaning a 'serious risk of collision'. This is the highest incident rating the CAA can give. Investigators were unable to identify the drone, which did not appear on air traffic control radar and disappeared after the encounter."
So, being that it is called "An unidentified drone", do we know that it was a drone and not a bird or something else?
How about we just call it for an Unidentified Flying Object until we figured out what it was?
When two planes almost collide, they call it a near miss. It's a near hit. A collision is a near miss.
George Carlin
N417SW SKYWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT SKW2608 BOMBARDIER CL600 AIRCRAFT ON FINAL, STRUCK BIRDS, LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT, DAMAGE TO AIRCRAFT IS MINOR, SACRAMENTO, CA
http://www.asias.faa.gov/pls/a...
UAVs (sometimes called "drones") shouldn't be operating around airports but the likelihood of one downing a transport category aircraft is just about zero.
Geese have managed to bring down jet fighters so a bird strike is bad enough.
Unless said drone carries some hardened steel components, this is more like a collision with a bird. Even airplane engines (the most vulnerable part) are designed to withstand that. A direct collision will probably result in some light paint scratches on the airplane. Unlike the case of an airplane collision, the destruction of the drone is not an issue here.
What is going on here is that some bureaucrats inflate the risk perception of something that is basically a non-issue to look really, really dangerous. This is likely done for purely political reasons, to inflate their perceived importance.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes, it IS a threat. And a responsible person wouldn't be flying these things where they can put other people's lives at risk.
Yet airports DO take measures to discourage birds from being in their vicinity. Now, most birds generally don't fear fines and prison sentences, so the measures usually take the form of: (i) changing the environment, to make it less appealing -- removing surrounding trees, food sources, etc; (ii) trained birds of prey; (iii) sound-generating devices.
RC aircraft have historically been used by a small number of (responsible) hobbyists. Drones are becoming more widespread, and their owners are starting to include idiots.
It's a shame that some idiots are behaving this way. I say release the falcons on them!
And you think anybody would be flying a commercial quad-copter near a runway approach? That is BS. Nobody is going to risk not only a very expensive piece of equipment but also a huge fine and possible loss of permission to operate drones. This clearly was something far lighter and far less expensive.
Also, Li-Ion can _not_ explode. It burns, very hotly, but it burns _slow_. There is no "could" here. Really, there is not. Goose feathers are a far better explosive than Li-Ion batteries. They _can_ explode if pulverized finely enough and mixed just right. Does that happen? No. It does not. Would it be a problem? No. Not enough energy in there to do actual damage. If you want a drone to blow up an airplane engine, you better add some pretty damn powerful explosive.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Really now? You trust a some random moron who's motivation and skills are complete unknowns? You have a higher opinion of mankind than I.
Yes, it's unlikely that a small drone will crash a commercial jet. No, it's not impossible at all.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Your utility theory about the value of the drone fails to take into account human stupidity. The fact a collision almost did occur disproves your entire thesis. Anyone prioritizing the value of their drone back would not fly near airports in the first place, obviously. Airspace around airports obviously needs protecting, not against your hypothetical rational drone operator, but against the irrational drone operators which this story proves exist.
Let's trust Wikipedia on bird strikes and assume that small objects (under about 10kg) rarely cause a catastrophic collision, mostly it looks like bird strikes and similar are survivable for planes, they just cost lots of money. Looks like most aircraft aren't going to fall out of the sky even faced with a drone operator who successfully crashes into a plane. However the photos show it can make a pretty mess of expensive jet engines.
So I suspect that commercial interest might also be at play, it would be in the airlines' interest to claim a terrorism threat to stop idiots going to the supermarket in the morning then flying a drone near commercial airspace in the afternoon. Going to cost a lot to replace one of those jet engines from the look of the wikipedia photos showing what happens when a bird hits them.
Seems like if you want to commit an act of terror then a 5kg lump of plastic isn't likely to knock an airliner out of the sky, but it will probably cost the airlines a lot of money so I can imagine they'd quite like some regulations in place to stop idiots flying them near their planes.
I'm fed up with hearing the old trope that engines are tested by firing geese into them. Whilst this is true, the test is to ensure that the engine does not completely disintegrate peppering the cabin with shrapnel. The engine is most certainly not unscathed and if not written off completely would require extensive and costly refurbishment.
A drone may not be as heavy as a goose but it would very likely cause damage to the turbine blades resulting in reduced power and vibration and necessitating expensive repairs. Reduced power would also pose a danger.
Consequently, it goes without saying that airports do everything possible to prevent bird strikes and will presumably do the same for drones.
It's unfortunate that idiots like this (and the idiots that shine lasers into cockpits) will spoil it for us all. Inevitably, good toys will eventually be banned.
Stop being stupid. There is a ton of risks to flying airplanes that are relevant, this is _not_ one of them.
It is an avoidable risk, in that we can tell idiotic humans to stop flying quadcopters near planes, you fools! Unfortunately, geese and other dumb animals cannot understand us when we tell them this, but humans do... and then choose to ignore it.
These people are presumably buzzing planes on purpose as a "how close can I get" thrill, or to get close-up footage of planes. These are not valid reasons to wilfully and knowingly risk the safety of an aircraft and its passengers. There are laws with names like "reckless endangerment" for this sort of thing....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
That technology has been available for a few decades.
Yes it has. But there has been a fundamental shift in the accessability of the technology. A majority of this technology has historically been radio transmitters that cost hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars, recievers that cost similar, and models that actually require a solid understanding of aerodynamics to build, trim and fly. Dozens if not hundreds of hours of work to build it. An big investment of time, money, and a dash of pride meant that flyers protected their craft like a their first born. Flying near an airfield would be unspeakable; No way in hell do I want my toy wrecked by errant prop or jet wash! (..I guess it would suck if I brought an actual plane down as well.. I guess).
The only thing different about drones is that they are slow and hence easier seen.
I disagree. Any spanner with a credit card and a desire to see their neighbours tits can go buy a ready to fly FPV drone cheap on eBay, hook it up to their smartphone, and get in the air in a second. No expensive equipment investment, no time invested in the build, no incentive to protect their flyer. THIS is the difference, and it has seen people who would never consider an RC aircraft suddenly snapping them up like the "toys" they are often marketed to be. So now you have a bunch of people who have no knowledge about aerodynamics or aviation generally who suddenly think "wouldn't it be sick to go fly this around an airport for lulz and photos", and suddenly we have the problems we are now seeing. Most fixed and rotary wing hobbyists I know have an inherent respect for their fellow flyers, be they scale or full size pilots. We all share the sky, and we'd rather not kill each other.
HISTORICALLY there has been close to zero risk (no such thing as zero risk, where there are humans involved, there is always room for something to fuck up) but now the technology is more accessable to the "pleb public", the risks of serious incident is and will continue to increase. As you have said, there have been next to no incidents historically, but as many have pointed out to you, the fact this story even exists to publish is a demonstration that the danger is indeed increasing. To ignore these factors is about as ignorant as using an absolute term like "zero actual risk" when there is no way for you to know what is and has happened globally in the past.. however many years of RC flying as a hobby.
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A pilot earning a small fortune, whose entire professional life is based on trust in him to save lives, whose entire career can be blighted by a single "what I saw wasn't there" incident, who's sitting next to co-pilots, lying in order to get an aircraft that he probably plays with at home himself banned?
Yeah. Right. It's all a conspiracy. Or some dickhead tested out his kids Christmas present and didn't know the laws surrounding drones because "it's just a toy", or wanted to get a cool shot of a plane taking off.
Heathrow is restricted airspace. NOTHING should be in that area, it's the world's busiest airport. You report ANYTHING out of the ordinary as a matter of course, as a pilot. And radar won't see a drone any more than it will see a house, or a car, or a cloud, or a big bird on it's own, or a lost birthday balloon. It's looking for aircraft. And all aircraft carry transponders blurting out their name and position by law anyway, which is the basis for air traffic control. Radar isn't there to find these kinds of things.
Occam's Razor. Either it's a conspiracy by the airports, the pilots, the governments and the CAA to ban drones that they themselves are using. Or it's some idiot with a Christmas toy. And they are already having enough problems with laser pointers, etc. by such idiots. I'm going with the later.
I would rather trust the CAA's own reporting and videos on Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) showing bird strikes and what one (that's 1!) goose can do to a £230,000 engine. Three strikes a year which result in emergency landings, and that's just in UK airspace. Sometimes strikes aren't through engines, but through cockpit windows.
That is a risk.
Drones? That's just fucking lunacy. I'd go so far as to call it malicious intent.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Around an airport controlled airspace is shaped like an inverted wedding cake. The smallest layer - which contains the runways - touches the ground; therefore you can be knee height in there and still flying illegally if you don't have permission.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."