
What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated - cdcro
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/what-may-be-first-drone-linked-copter-crash-being-investigated
======
bri3d
Summary: Flight instructor saw a drone during low-altitude hovering exercises
with a student, tried to land, and hit a bush. Much like lasers I suspect the
psychological role of drones as a pilot distraction could be as great or
greater than the actual risk to an airframe. Article has good links to various
drone collisions (all resulting in limited damage to the larger vehicle) as
well as FAA study showing drones could be more dangerous to airframes than
birds because of harder materials.

~~~
nraynaud
The trick is that there has never been any confirmed dangerous collision with
a quadcopter, all the tests have shown them less dangerous than geese, and
accidents in the wild have never impacted the air-worthiness of the aircraft.

We will probably end up with the 400 feet AGL banned for aviation, and 300
feet AGL limit for recreational flying, and 100 feet of buffer.

General aviation pilots violate regulations all the time without being
disciplined, and kill people once in a while, and it's a bit hard to put all
the burden on the recreational remote controlled aircraft pilots.

here is a guy with a cool head on the situation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gOxuyr438](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gOxuyr438)

~~~
bri3d
That was a great video, thank you for the link!

I think that's a pretty sensible set of rules, but it turns gray in situations
like this helicopter hover training one where civil aviation pilots have a
legitimate need to be under 300ft AGL for a length of time. My intuition (and
this is what I was trying to push with my comments around the collisions in
the article never affecting an airframe) was that drone pilots need to be
better educated around staying the hell away from other flying vehicles (which
I treated as a given, probably leading to downvotes) but also that helicopter
pilots will need to be trained to treat drones like geese and not to react as
strongly as this pilot did, since, to your point, it's going to be hard to put
the entire burden on RC pilots.

However, based on the other comments in this thread, this seems like a very
controversial stance for the HN crowd, and I do sympathize with the argument
from the helicopter pilot in this thread that they've already got enough on
their plate without needing to handle mental interrupts from other junk flying
around. The proliferation of recreational drones with terrible inexperienced
pilots is definitely a problem we'll have to handle in the coming years.

~~~
nraynaud
there is a little issue, you don't hover an helicopter next to people and, and
you don't land next to untrained people (because they could rush to the tail
rotor). And they turn a lot around a site before landing, where was the pilot
of the RC quad, and why didn't they see them?

------
ryanmarsh
I get the feeling the pilots (recreational) in my area really don’t like
drones. I file my flight plans electronically and, maybe this is coincidental
but, every time I file a flight plan a small aircraft will apear right
overhead flying low within a few minutes. It happens every time. Sometimes
multiple aircraft will arrive and buzz me.

I of course have to stay under 400 feet but get this, those pilots are often
flying at right around 400. I don’t know what’s going on but it’s weird. I
plan to monitor the radio traffic in the area next time if I can find a way to
do that.

~~~
jsjohnst
Would love to chat more about this privately. My contact info is in my
profile.

------
cmurf
Can a drone stay in level flight in the downwash of a helicopter's main rotor?
I'm not sure what their relative velocities are.

~~~
jsjohnst
Depends on the drone and also which helicopter and how close the helicopter is
to the drone (and also the ground, because of vortex ring state).

Give me criteria for the later part and I’ll be happy to calculate the
likelihood.

------
GiorgioG
They were flying in a remote area, low to the ground. If it wasn't by an
airport and below 400 feet, I'm not sure there was any wrong-doing on the
drone's part. Sometimes they're called 'accidents' aka s __* happens.

~~~
cmurf
That's deeply ignorant. Instead of speculating and arriving at the ridiculous
idea that the only regulation is staying below 400 feet and away from airports
and then anything goes, how about finding the regulation?

 _§107.23 Hazardous operation. No person may: (a) Operate a small unmanned
aircraft system in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or
property of another;_

 _§107.37 Operation near aircraft; right-of-way rules. (a) Each small unmanned
aircraft must yield the right of way to all aircraft, airborne vehicles, and
launch and reentry vehicles. Yielding the right of way means that the small
unmanned aircraft must give way to the aircraft or vehicle and may not pass
over, under, or ahead of it unless well clear. (b) No person may operate a
small unmanned aircraft so close to another aircraft as to create a collision
hazard._

I mean come on. If there is an accident someone made a mistake. And if the
regulations don't make clear who did what wrong, then the regulations have a
mistake in them and need to be extended or clarified.

~~~
kelchm
> staying below 400 feet

As someone that has spent a lot of time flying model sailplanes, I want to
point out that there is no regulation which prevents a hobbyist from flying
above 400ft AGL, as long as you abide by the guidelines established by the AMA
or another "nationwide community-based organization".

The FAA boils everything from section 336 (the "Special Rule for Model
Aircraft") as follows:

\- _Fly for hobby or recreation ONLY_

\- _Register your model aircraft_

\- _Follow community-based safety guidelines and fly within the programming of
a nationwide community-based organization Fly a model aircraft under 55 lbs.
unless certified by a community-based organization_

\- _Fly within visual line-of-sight_

\- _Never fly near other aircraft_

\- _Notify the airport and air traffic control tower prior to flying within 5
miles of an airport_

\- _Never fly near emergency response efforts_

~~~
cmurf
FAR 101.41 (b) subsumes any such guideline as a regulation. AMA's see and
avoid guideline says any flight expected to go above 400 feet requires a
spotter, so if you don't do that, you're violating FARs. Operating an sUAS
with autopilot (among other things) has its additional advanced flight system
programming guidelines, which have a hard 400 foot ceiling when operating
within 5 miles of an airport. This is legally identical to having a regulation
preventing operation above 400 feet AGL.

If you violate the applicable community guidelines, you're violating FARs.
That's what this part says.

And then there is the catch all FAR 101.43, which is a big black hole of
liability that you can also easily run into if you're unfamiliar with the
national airspace system and your surroundings. If you fly a sailplane or
m/sUAS above 1200' AGL in a published victor airway (this is Class E
airspace), I'd argue that's a clear altitude violation of this regulations.

~~~
kelchm
I disagree with your interpretation. Here is the exact verbage you are
referencing from the AMA:

 _A spotter should be used to assist in monitoring the surrounding airspace
for manned aircraft whenever a flight is expected to exceed 400 feet above the
ground and that operation is expected to be in proximity to known manned
aircraft traffic such as at a mixed-use facility or within three miles of an
airport. The spotter must have sufficient visual acuity and be mature enough
to take this responsibility very seriously._

So unless you are operating at a mixed-use facility or within three miles of
an airport, you do not need a spotter to fly a model aircraft above 400ft AGL.

------
newdayrising
I've been wondering this for a long time - what's to stop a terrorist from
flying and attaching a drone with an explosive payload to a large commercial
flight? Especially at night while the plane is taxiing?

~~~
craftyguy
Nothing, apparently. I wonder though if it would be large enough to be picked
up by the radar used at most airports to track planes on the ground.

~~~
jsjohnst
All of the consumer grade drones (aka ones under $2,500) don’t show up on
radar. They are too small and don’t have enough radar reflecting substances
(think about a typical airframe, the motors and battery are the only really
metallic parts of any size and they are still very very small compared to any
aircraft).

------
dang
Url changed from [https://www.techspot.com/news/73326-authorities-
investigatin...](https://www.techspot.com/news/73326-authorities-
investigating-what-may-first-drone-linked-aircraft.html), which points to
this.

------
mpetrovich
I wonder why the pilot didn’t attempt to go straight up.

~~~
taneq
Or just realise that a 1.9kg toy should be ignored rather than evaded. What
happens if a goose or swan or pelican flies near a helicopter?

~~~
13of40
Here's what happens when a Blackhawk hits one with it's rotor:
[https://petapixel.com/2018/01/02/dji-drone-collided-us-
army-...](https://petapixel.com/2018/01/02/dji-drone-collided-us-army-black-
hawk-chopper-dented-rotor/)

How much do you think that cost to replace? I love my drone as much as the
next guy, but someone who flies one next to a helicopter with people in it
needs to go to jail.

Edit: Here's a main rotor for an R-44 for $47,000...
[https://m.ebay.com/itm/R44-Robinson-Helicopter-Main-Rotor-
Bl...](https://m.ebay.com/itm/R44-Robinson-Helicopter-Main-Rotor-
Blades-C005-12-/141447583875)

~~~
cmurf
That's serious damage. I'm a pilot but not an engineer, I would not fly an
aircraft with that kind of damage without A&P consult, and there's a decent
chance only ferry flight would be legal if it were flight worthy at all.

The centrifugal force stress at the hub (root) of a blade is thousands of
times the weight of the blade. Easily there's tens to hundreds of tons of
force "trying" to pull the blade apart and this not so little nick, makes that
much more likely to succeed.

------
axau
I hope one day drones are regulated similarly to guns, i.e. de facto banned
unless some exception applies, such as:

\- you're in the middle of nowhere

\- you're doing it exclusively on a property you own (and the property is
large enough)

\- the use case is in the public good (e.g.: police can use guns)

In other cases, the downsides are large given potential for
abuse/voyeurism/sabotage, and upsides seem nil.

~~~
bennesvig
That seems very excessive, though regulation so far has been positive. Not
that this is you, but fear of "voyeurism" is often said by people who aren't
familiar with drones. I've owned multiple drones and would never consider them
a spying tool since they aren't discrete/sound like a flying lawnmower.
Additionally, most drones are equipped with wide-angle lenses which means
you'd have to get pretty close to spy.

My main worry about drones comes from terrorists using them where crowds of
people are gathered (concerts, events, etc), as other people have mentioned.

~~~
axau
It doesn’t really matter how discrete or not they are if even if you know
about it you can’t do much about it.

I’m also not convinced by a “don’t worry the camera is bad” argument; looking
at drone footage online it seems to have plenty of resolution to distinguish
people in one’s backyard, for example, and I’d expect those to only get better
over time.

