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Drone Believed To Have Hit British Airways Flight 'May Have Been a Plastic Bag' (telegraph.co.uk)
Reader schwit1 writes: The drone that reportedly hit a British Airways jet earlier this week may have actually been a plastic bag, a minister has said. Transport minister Robert Goodwill admitted authorities had not yet confirmed whether what struck the Airbus A320 was a remote-controlled device. The collision on Sunday night is believed to have been at around 1,700 ft near Richmond Park in south west London, over four times higher than the legal height limit. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch is investigating, alongside the Metropolitan Police. But following his comments today, Mr Goodwill also dismissed calls for tighter rules on drone use to protect against terror threats insisting current rules governing drone use were strong enough.From a Quartz report: Motherboard's Jason Koebler dove into the data the FAA released last August dove into the data the FAA released last August, and found that, among other things, "a 'large vulture,' a 'fast moving gray object,' a 'mini blimp,' a 'red UAS or balloon,' and 'a UFO' were all classified as drones in the FAA's report." This led him to decide that, when it comes to verifiable sightings -- even from trained pilots -- "drones are the new UFOs."
Preposterous.
Tornado in London? Don't think so.
A kids helium balloon maybe.
Tho people think they mean aliens when they here UFO pilots reporting thing as a UFO just makes sense, it was flying and they didnt know what it was.
Mr Goodwill also dismissed calls for tighter rules on drone use to protect against terror threats insisting current rules governing drone use were strong enough.
Bullshit.
This is Britain. I don't believe for a second ANYONE in government believes ANY rules is EVER "strong enough".
People far more qualified than I have reported their firsthand knowledge (but not certainty) concerning a fact.
But I am awesome. I played with a simulator once, and it was hard. Therefore it must be hard for less awesome people even if they fly actual aircraft routinely for a career.
Other people who have absolutely no firsthand knowledge have speculated that it was a plastic bag. I'm totally onboard with that.
Look over there, a squirrel!
A parrot?
Aye sir, it's resting now.
Resting? You mean it wasn't killed?
No sir, it's just pining for the fjords.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Drones disguised as plastic bags? What will these clever terrorists think of next?
Table-ized A.I.
If a terrorist wants to use a drone to attack a plane, what regulation is going to stop them? They already are looking at breaking murder laws, so why would they care about drone laws?
WE need a national registry of plastic bags! have licenses issues where all plastic bags should carry the license number of the person that owns it!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's amazing how many of these "sensational" stories eventually (and sometimes quickly) fall apart. The race to be first post has really made modern journalism nothing more than a professional game of crying wolf. Unless there's clear video of the actual event happening, it's all suspect at this point, and even video needs to be carefully scrutinized in this day and age.
I know what I'm giving out for the holidays this year!
I don't think new regulations will be effective. I speak from the point of view of someone in the US.
The rules are pretty illogical here. A drone that weighs two points is regulated the same way as a drone that weighs 50 points. Obviously, one of these is a much larger collision risk than the other. It also doesn't take into account the propulsion. A drone with a small jet engine can travel a lot faster than a simple quadcopter, and therefore can have more momentum to cause greater damage. Yet both are regulated the same way. The regulations are generally based on whether the drone weighs more than 55 pounds and whether it's being flown for recreational use. We need more common sense and we need to educate people.
I don't think people are generally malicious. They're far more likely to be ignorant of rules or they don't actually think their toy drone can cause damage. People might take the regulations seriously if they were based around common sense, as I discussed in the above paragraph. Also, people need to be better educated about what the rules are and how drones can actually be dangerous. Everyone knows what a car crash test looks like. Something similar showing the damage a drone can cause might change people's minds. People are mostly aware that the FAA wants them to register their drones. They've certainly been told that drones can be dangerous to aircraft, but I don't think people truly believe it enough to modify their behavior.
Continually restricting drone flights probably won't change behavior. If the changes are to more common sense restrictions, people might take them more seriously. There will be people who want to cause harm with drones, and regulations aren't going to stop them. One of the smartest things we could do is research how to make aircraft more resilient to collisions with drones.
Finally, let people do things like film fireworks displays with drones. There was a story last year about the FAA cracking down on someone using a drone to film fireworks and then posting the video to Youtube. This is really stupid. It doesn't hurt anyone if the person makes a bit of money filming a fireworks display with a drone. And there shouldn't have been any manned aircraft around the display, either. The responsible thing is to issue a NOTAM so aircraft avoid fireworks, which are already hazardous to aircraft. Fireworks displays are supposed to be launched away from people, so a drone near the display shouldn't be a hazard to anyone. Again, we need common sense rules.
So this guy looked at an FAA report from last August and saw that a bag would be classified as a UFO in the USA. Then he makes the leap that the object reported by the pilots in England as a drone might be a bag. Really?
There is no connection at all between the FAA report and the strike in London.
Black Bag, the Faithful Border Bin Liner
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
My city banned stores from giving them out a few years ago. It is a much more pleasant world without them. We allow paper bags, but the store is required to charge 5 cents each for them.
Before the ban, stores were practically forcing plastic bags on me, even when I didn't need them. Because clerks are lazy and distracted. Now, people bring their own bags most of the time, and if they forget it only costs them 5 cents. The streets aren't littered with an excess of bags anymore. The doom and gloom the store owners predicted? Never happened, the same as the doom and gloom business owners predict for everything else that involves small changes.
Landing a large commercial jet is hard when people on the ground are shinning laser pointers into the cabin, and passengers cell phones' are disrupting the instruments, and Li-ion batteries are burning a hole in the cargo hold, and that hot, new, red-headed stewardess you're trying to bang.
Ban private drones anyway! They take the jobs of good, hard working delivery drivers! They might be used to spy on children! They are technology and Google and Amazon like them, so they must be evil! Get out the pitchforks!
I propose that all plastic bags be registered with the FAA to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. If you are under 13, you must have your parents register your plastic bag instead.
>> hot, new, red-headed stewardess you're trying to bang
You may want to switch positions before final then.
Good thing they're shinning. Don't want to get sued.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I had the impression that planes had a layer of laminar flow around the fuselage. So something like a 10gram plastic bag wouldn't actually make contact with the bodywork. Would you even expect a lightweight drone to get through that layer?
I can see that a heavy drone (one with enough battery power to lift it to 1700 ft might do, but if so, you'd definitely see a mark on the side.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
But we'll never know.
Because if it was a commercial test of drone delivery and it strayed in and hit a small jet, they'll never admit that it's really really stupid to fly drones anywhere.
Except for the ones I helped build for Boeing. Those are supposed to kill people. That's their job.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
i was driving near JFK Airport last weekend and saw a few kites up in the air that could have been around 1700 feet close to the final approach path for one of the runways.
5 cents is a deal. Here we're charging 10 cents but that's not the reason I write.
I went into a Vons here awhile back with my nice canvas bags. I had the bags in my cart and turned to grab something. When I turned back around maybe a few seconds later someone had stolen my canvas bags!
When I thought about it I figured out that each bag cost be $7.50 (they ARE nice bags). Given that, I use maybe two bags per trip to the store and do that twice a week. So, 0.10*2*2*4 = $1.60/month. So in replacing my bags that were stolen it points out either I better buy cheaper canvas bags or simply buy the plastic ones. I'm loosing money here hand over fist!
It did eventually dawn on me to use those cheapo carabiners to clip my bags to the cart :P
I just got a load of drones from the grocery store yesterday.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's a bird, it's a bag, it's super drone!
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Or you could just save $$$ by stealing someone else's bags.
Also, today I learned we need to register leaf blowers and plastic shopping bags or else the terrorists win.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If I have a cart, I put my bags under the cart on that shelf that was apparently made for cases of beer and sugardrink.
I made my wife a fancy canvas bag, but she uses it as a purse. Oops. I guess there is about a $5 limit before a bag becomes impractical for shopping.
Of course it is, by corollary to the Second Amendment - everyone needs something in which to bear their arms when exercising that right, and outlawing plastic bags would surely infringe on that right.
Wait until announce that the "airplane" was also actually a slightly larger and faster moving plastic bag. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Would you like your drones in paper or plastic?
I bought a couple of dozen cloth bags a while ago (likely not as nice as your bags) for 9 cents each. I'm ahead of the curve on their first use.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Saw this sig the other day, think it applies in this case: Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
This is a feeble attempt to downplay the incident. They simply don't know yet. So the guy says "It might as well have been a plastic bag" and the next headlines are "Plastic bag mistaken for drone", "Drone incident is plastic bag".
Media including /. are so bloody eager to have the first scoop, facts and details are just annoying.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
See subject.
My U.F.O. report would read: "Drone". Yup. At 30,000 Ft we saw a circular, um, "Drone", flying dangerously close to our aircraft. Yup. "Drone". Definitely a "drone".
Politicians will likely through passing laws against drones--even if the reason is invalid.
Some years ago, one of the anti-rave acts was passed using scientific tests accidentally done with meth. It's not like the repealed the foundation-less law.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I was flying along the coast, just south of San Francisco, when a small dot caught my eye. Flying is typically 99% boring and 1% terrifying -- this was the 1% that day -- I thought it was another plane headed right for me.
About a second later, it was clear that it was a small balloon, and I flew right past it. Just for fun, I entered a 360 degree turn to see it again -- the fun part was that as I came around it was still caught in the vortex from my wing, and was spinning madly! I was surprised, as it probably took well over a minute to make the turn; I didn't realize that even 1,500 lb Cessnas would generate vortices with that much endurance. I treated big jets with a lot more respect after that.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
You don't have to just stand by, you can also get busy lamenting or prognosticating.
For example, in the recent original /. story...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"They simply don't know yet."
Indeed. but it's been pointed out a few times that the rise in reported drone near misses at Heathrow is only matched by the fall in bird near misses at Heathrow.
Are you sure it wasn't a sparrow? They are flying, and autonomous too.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"