Slashdot Mirror
How A Civilian Drone Crashed Into the US Army's Helicopter (arstechnica.com)
"In September, Slashdot reported on an in-flight collision between an Army UA60 helicopter and a hobby drone over Staten Island," writes Slashdot reader ElizabethGreene. "The NTSB has released its final report on the incident, blaming the drone pilot." Ars Technica reports:
After waiting 30 minutes, [drone-owner] Tantashov assumed there had been a mechanical malfunction and that his drone had fallen into the water. He returned home. A week later, Tantashov received a call at work. It was an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board... Would Tantashov be surprised to learn, the investigator asked, that his drone had not crashed into the water?
And that it had instead slammed into the main rotor of a US Army-operated Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter that was patrolling for the UN General Assembly in Manhattan? And that it had put a 1.5-inch dent in said rotor and led to the helicopter diverting back to its New Jersey base...? As the recently completed NTSB report on the incident puts it, "several [drone] components were lodged in the helicopter."
The drone's serial number was still legible on its motor, and investigators were able to track down its owner by contacting the manufacturer, who'd maintained a record of the sale. The drone's owner said he'd been unaware of "temporary flight restrictions" in effect that night, and "said that he relied on 'the app' to tell him if it was OK to fly." But for two months DJI had disabled the feature that checks for temporary flight restrictions (to perform troubleshooting), and the NTSB notes that that feature "is intended for advisory use only," and it's the responsibility of drone pilots to comply with FAA airspace regulations.
The NTSB also faults the drone's owner for letting it fly out of his line of sight.
And that it had instead slammed into the main rotor of a US Army-operated Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter that was patrolling for the UN General Assembly in Manhattan? And that it had put a 1.5-inch dent in said rotor and led to the helicopter diverting back to its New Jersey base...? As the recently completed NTSB report on the incident puts it, "several [drone] components were lodged in the helicopter."
The drone's serial number was still legible on its motor, and investigators were able to track down its owner by contacting the manufacturer, who'd maintained a record of the sale. The drone's owner said he'd been unaware of "temporary flight restrictions" in effect that night, and "said that he relied on 'the app' to tell him if it was OK to fly." But for two months DJI had disabled the feature that checks for temporary flight restrictions (to perform troubleshooting), and the NTSB notes that that feature "is intended for advisory use only," and it's the responsibility of drone pilots to comply with FAA airspace regulations.
The NTSB also faults the drone's owner for letting it fly out of his line of sight.
Do they only have one?
How much does a rotor blade on a UH-60M run anyway?
Going to have to start hardening aircraft against drone strikes.
Many are already hardened against bird strikes like Canadian Geese.
This was always a huge problem waiting to happen. The barrier to entry for idiot UAV operators is WAY too small.
In my opinion they should all have pilots' licenses to fly beyond 50 feet from the operator.
Take off every 'sig' !!
Ban assault drones!
US drops bombs on innocent civilians all day long and here we are, sitting here and discussing how the Greatest Country in the World(tm) is suffering from an accidental civilian drone crash into one of its death machines?
So how did it crash?
Just imagine if instead he'd caused a fatal accident.
The government would probably do more than just make you register your drones.
And you just know, it's bound to happen.
I mean if you drive your car into a train you are at fault The train can not maneuver, and you should have looked ahead and stopped when it looked like you were going to run into a train. Yet here we have a military pilot with the best equipment, best training, and best eyesight piloting flew a helicopter into a non maneuvering quadcopter on a fixed direct path to home. The drone was beyond LOS and the operator did not know that a Blackhawk was headed on an intercept coarse. Yet somehow the quadcopter operator is at fault.
In the nautical environment the vessel that is less maneuverable is given the right of way. Yet in the air environment all crashes are the fault of those least able to defend themselves. In this case it is the harmless happy go lucky quadcopter.
I was recording video at San Jose City Hall when I noticed several kids were playing with a new drone. Didn't take them long to fly it straight up that it disappeared from sight. May have gone above the 400 feet limit. Most tall buildings in the are are restricted to 300 feet or less, as the airport is nearby and flight zones are overhead.
They should have been looking out for drones.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
First? Yeah, I agree that this drone operator was being irresponsible. You shouldn't really be able to accidentally crash into a helicopter or airplane with one, IMO. That only happens when you're flying one way out of line of sight range and probably only when you fly in airspace that's fairly busy.
Second? I feel like right after finally taking the plunge and investing a decent sum of money into a quality drone setup myself, the laws are just starting to appear at a fast and furious pace, to regulate what I can and can't do with this thing. We've got Trump demanding FAA registrations of drones must go on again, as part of some national security bill. We've got DJI pushing the "Aeroscope" tech to all the DC big-wigs, so anyone buying their tool can intercept your RF communications with a drone in flight and grab all your telemetry and registration info. And stories are appearing about law enforcement wanting to use drones to patrol for crime (and by extension, further limit what hobbyists can do with one that might "interfere" with their uses for them).
I'm not liking where all this is headed at all. My drone flights have been for such things as taking a video survey of the condition of my roof on my house. If I'm at risk of colliding with anything, it'll be some tree or utility line I accidentally flew into ... not other aircraft! Yet technically, I'm already flying in violation of the rules if I don't make an effort to report my intent to fly to a small airport in the next city over. (Realistically, I don't think I've ever seen a small plane fly over that would have come from that airport. It's just not a factor here. But the rules don't factor in common sense.... only how miles away from the nearest airport.)
I just wanted a video camera that could film from overhead and a little fun flying a modern version of your typical R/C helicopter or plane. But now, they're blowing this hobby out of proportion. It's like wanting to build and fly model rockets from the old Estes or Centuri kits and everyone eyeing you as a potential terrorist threat for launching missiles.
so all it takes to bring down a military helicopter is a dozen or two dozen shitty drones ?
well, that's gotta have the military none too happy
Absolute statements are never true
DJI’s “GEO” system did offer some guidance on TFRs, but it was problematic; according to the NTSB, DJI responded by disabling the TFR features in GEO some time in August 2017, not restoring it until October. Thus, “relying on the app” was of limited use in September, when Tantashov made his flight. In any event, DJI stresses that GEO is only an “advisory” system and that drone pilots are responsible for knowing what restrictions exist in their areas.
Classic idiot software problem: There is a function called IsItSafe() and when the system does not know, it returned TRUE instead of FALSE. *facepalm* If it did not know for certain that there were no flight restrictions in place, it should have assumed that it was not safe! Better yet, it should display the message "Service temporarily disabled, check https://notams.aim.faa.gov/not... for up-to-date flight restrictions."
For making it much worse for the rest of us by being irresponsible. More irresponsibility will lead to further regulatory requirements/restrictions just like everything else.
... draft the drones. No more civilian ones.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Firstly you can't ban drones. The genie is out of the bottle and you can't shove it back. While DJI is the largest manufacturer of "ready to fly" drones you can build a drone very cheaply from readily available components. And unless you want to ban Arduinos or raspberry pis there isn't a way to control for the flight controllers, let alone trying to ban brushless motors.
Secondly there is no question that the drone operator was at fault. The reasoning is he flew beyond visual range in an area that has a high amount of manned air traffic. While he was under 400ft at the time of the incident there is still too much air traffic to be flying beyond visual range.
On the flip side though notams are difficult to read if your aren't familiar with the terminology. And accessing the information isn't simple and easy. Drones are not going away. What's more, at some point DJI will lose its dominant position and drones will be controlled by iNav, betaflight, cleanflight, ardupilot or what ever. All of which run on a generic STM chip. Regulation via manufacturer will not be possible either.
Sure, it would be great if people used their brains more. But it aint happening. So steps need to be taken to mitigate risk. CASA, the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority, has released an app which contains real time air safety information which drone users can use to check if their location is ok to fly their drone. This should become the standard approach world wide.
If you check the actual FAA report, you will see that both craft are defined as "Helicopter" in that report.
Therefore, this was a collision between like-craft.
And it's also interesting to note that registration did nothing to either prevent the incident nor to track down the operator of the "unmanned" helicopter involved.
So can someone explain why US drone owners have to register again?
So this guy spent time disabling a key feature that would prevent such conflicts and yet one has to ask why he would do such a thing? Since flight path restrictions exist, why then can someone even disable such information being de programed? Of course then the operator was simply too lazy to obtain such flight restrictions himself to avoid these problems with other aircraft. Not sure just anyone should be able to obtain these drones because obviously they do not take them seriously as to how they can interfere with other aircraft.
I agree. Too many people think problems get solved when there is somebody to blame.
Instead, humans try to design "idiot proof" things which won't give even a chance to do wrong. Maybe the drones would need such systems. Like an automatic clearance call to an official server and fly only if it gets an 'OK' reply?
Otherwise they are a menace. We cannot count on the general public operating drones safely, and a collision can result in catastrophe. Many aircraft fly at low altitude at points. Also, some drones can fly very high. They are aircraft, and they are too small to see from an airplane - they all need to have transponders.
Spotted the FAA lackey. If I have to put a $1500 transponder and a $600 GPS (all FAA approved, remember), each weighing a few ounces, plus the electrical system to support them, in an model aircraft which costs under $1000 and weighs about a pound, I might as well give it up. Especially since I have several such models. Obviously that's what the FAA wants; they don't want anything in the airspace (including an inch off the ground) not flown by a Real Pilot with thousands of hours of instruction and medical exams and is impractical unless you're independently wealthy or do it for a living. Especially since once you have the license, anything the FAA says goes or they pull your license, regardless of what the actual law says.
Fortunately the FAA doesn't have enough enforcement officers to chase down all the model aircraft users.
I know it is burdensome, but consider what happens when a private aircraft with people on board strikes a drone - all the people are at risk of dying, and the damage to the aircraft can be catastrophic. Many amphibious sport aviation aircraft fly at low altitude over lakes or near local private runways - now pilots have to worry about someone flying a drone over the lake or near a private runway. It is just too risky. This is very serious. Perhaps the cost of the transponders will come down if all drones must have them.
Having software that claims to control for no-fly zones but fails to do so is a recipe for disaster, because it encourages people to use that software and believe that they're compliant. If I'm flying drones and know I need to check, then I can check in whatever ways are available to me (and acceptable methods for checking need to be determined and made public). If I fail to check, then obviously the fault is on me. But if I utilize tools that I chose because they said the checking was built-in and it turns out it was not, that's a huge failure.
It also needs to be clear what methods of checking are acceptable. If the only acceptable method of checking is to call a local airport's flight control operations center and ask, that needs to be clear both to drone users and to the staff at the airport who are about to get hammered with hundreds or thousands of calls "As required by the FAA." Oh, and if they get sick of those calls and decide to stop responding they can probably expect lawsuits over their backdoor ban on drone use.
Shades of Arthur Dent!
fencepost
just a little off
The word you are looking for is "prohibitive". Look, if you want to argue for banning model aircraft, argue for banning model aircraft. Pretending a transponder regulation is some reasonable common-sense regulation when it amounts to prohibition is dishonest.
And perhaps the check really is in the mail.
Hi. The difference is that model aircraft is a true hobby - people who use model aircraft are a small minority of the population, and are aficionados - they tend to be knowledgeable and responsible; whereas drones are mass marketed and every kid and goofball tends to have one. Drones also have cameras on them - I think most model aircraft don't - and so there is a tendency to want to send a drone far and wide to see what is there - violating the line of sight rules. There needs to be a way to either (1) restrict drones to people who are responsible and serious (perhaps like yourself), perhaps via a type of pilot license that requires training and money to obtain - i.e., an investment that proves a level of seriousness - that will eliminate the goofballs, or (2) make the devices such that they warn human passenger aircraft. Anyway, I have no say about it - that's just my opinion.