Another Drone Crashes Near White House (roboticstrends.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A man has been given a citation for flying a Drone near the Washington Monument and crashing on the Ellipse, a grassy area outside of the security perimeter near the White House South Lawn. Howard Solomon III said he had been trying to take pictures of the monument and that the wind blew the drone across a street that divides the Ellipse from the grounds of the Washington Monument. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Park Police says Solomon didn't appear to be doing anything 'nefarious' but added, hat this was the ninth time a drone has been flown in a national park in the greater Washington area in 2015 and the 26th since 2013.

Comments

9 drones? Sounds like an invasion....

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, 9 TERRORIST drones have been flown in national parks?
And how many KILLER Frisbees?
What about ASSASSIN boomerangs?

IMHO, they should define the difference between the small TOY drones and the bigger commercial metal ones based on weight, and quit worrying about the toys.

Because they have no significant payload, no great momentum if they crash and don't pose a threat except in the imagination of security theater budget justifiers.

Did they realize they were in a National Park?

[pollarda]

I bet that most of the people flying their drones in and around Washington monuments didn't even realize they were in a National Park. When people think of National Parks, they think of Yellow Stone, Yosemite, etc. out in the middle of the wilderness -- not in the middle of the city. Then there is probably an even smaller percentage that know that flying drones inside National Parks is illegal.

Of course, flying your drone around the White House is plain stupid. With all the security the President gets you know that flying drones around the White House is simply asking for trouble -- no matter the legality.

Re:Did they realize they were in a National Park?

[zippthorne]

Well sure.. but shouldn't it be fine to fly a RC helicopter to take some pictures in a national park?

Re:Did they realize they were in a National Park?

[ScentCone]

Apparently not. All RC aircraft, of any kind, are completely banned from use in any area managed by the parks department. That includes thousands of miles of coastline and riverfronts, huge swaths of unoccupied forest, large areas of unoccupied desert, and so on. We certainly can't have some photographer using a 4-pound plastic quad copter to take pictures from 50' feet in the air out in the middle of a huge forest. But we can allow your visit to a national monument to be disrupted by a pack of screaming children, or someone wearing toxic levels of perfume, or people jousting with selfie sticks in front of Abraham Lincoln, because that's different.

Re:Did they realize they were in a National Park?

[ColdWetDog]

MOST National Park land isn't anything that resembles wildnerness where a drone (or a real helicopter for that matter) would not be noticed. Yes, there are parks like Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Glacier, etc where a drone could easily be lost but many parks look like the tourist traps that they are.

Even the wilderness-type parks have the majority of humans clustered in small areas.

And the Park Service has to deal with all manner of idiot on routine basis. From the yo-yo that thinks it's OK to get close enough to some large wild animal to get forensic pictures of nose hair to the moron who tries to tramp up a glacier encrusted mountain in flip flops. And all of their first cousins.

So yeah, the first reaction to drones or anything remotely like them will be to say no. Even trying to get a helicopter to shoot professional video takes months of going back and forth to get permission. And we users of the less traveled roads in National Parks like it that way. I just bought a couple of miniature drones (Hubsun 4 and similar) to play with until I can get good enough to risk and expensive version out in the boonies and the temptation to use them anywhere is certainly there. They're a lot of fun and the capabilities of a $1000 drone are awfully impressive. That combo is going to bring out the people with both disposable income and disposable brains.

The Park Service can't stop families or perfumaholics or the ever present selfie stick. They can't stop stupid. The Park Service is a complex beast run by bureaucrats in Washington who think that a giant Coca-Cola sign on the wall of the Grand Canyon would be an OK idea if they got paid enough for it. It is managed by lots of individual folks in the field, some of which are impressively competent and caring. Others not so much.

But until we have ways of actually controlling this entertaining new concept, I'd agree with NPS and keep the fuckers mostly out.

"drones" eh?

[rubycodez]

remote control hobbyist planes existed when I was a kid. I'm over 50.

Re:"drones" eh?

[rubycodez]

we made more threatening things sometimes too, rubber band powered paper plate planes. Terrorists in training!

We should inspire...

[FlopEJoe]

Cool drone, Howard. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more people like you to like science. It's what makes America great.

Easy solution

[kimvette]

There is a relatively easy solution to this problem to avoid any confusion.

Offer permits for such drone flights around monuments and installations such as the Capitol, with the contract signed upon applying for the permit acknowledging the limits on flight ceiling, proximity to the installation and to other people, and a hotline to call to report your location when you start flying and verify the time is okay (you never know if a national security issue has arisen there), if you have a mishap, etc. and when you've finished getting your shots. Even better would be to require that you have a cellphone on you and are reachable in case any sort of "lockdown" event occurs and the drone flight needs to be cancelled to eliminate distraction of security personnel.

This puts security at ease, preserves your right as The People to view what your tax dollars are paying for, and is a reasonable compromise both sides of the issue. It also eliminates the excuse of "but I didn't know it wasn't okay to hover outside the oval office for 20 minutes!" and "I didn't know it wasn't okay to buzz the President's helicopter!"

Allowing flights ad-hoc over such installations is chaotic and is a distraction, but disallowing them completely is too extreme. Allowing them under controlled conditions outside the perimeter when there is nothing serious going on is not unreasonable.