
Thursday night Mountain View power outage the result of a drone crash - stevewilhelm
http://www.mountainview.gov/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=1168&TargetID=9
======
thaumaturgy
Ignoring the usual argument over drones vs. public safety:

It is absurd that in the US in 2017 this kind of damage can be caused by
flying a relatively cheap device too close to power infrastructure. For the
cost of a large-scale terrorist attack
([http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/25/325240653/h...](http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/25/325240653/how-
much-does-a-terrorist-attack-cost-a-lot-less-than-you-think)), a group of
people could shut down a lot of public infrastructure in a lot of metropolitan
areas, causing a lot of mayhem, and likely get away with it.

This seems like the kind of critical weakness of infrastructure that the
current administration is supposed to be focusing on fixing.

~~~
taeric
What is your suggestion? By and large, society has gotten farther than folks
realize by advantage of cooperation and a shared goal of peers. It has always
been somewhat trivial to concoct a major threat to a lot of folks. Your local
library has a ton of these ideas in the fiction section.

The expense of making things sabotage proof is substantial and hard to really
accomplish completely. Even massive feats of engineering, such as the moon
landing, all would have failed had a single actor been a saboteur.

~~~
js2
In any case, the cause of most power outages is still squirrels. We'll be in
real trouble when the squirrels learn to pilot drones.

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/06/17/squir...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/06/17/squirrels_probably_cause_more_power_outages_in_the_u_s_than_cyberattacks.html)

[http://cybersquirrel1.com/](http://cybersquirrel1.com/)

~~~
mmanfrin
We need a WAR ON SQUIRRELS.

~~~
otempomores
Ladies and gentlemen:

I would like to summarize for you the meeting that I have just had with the
bipartisan leaders which began at 8 o'clock and was completed 2 hours later.

I began the meeting by making this statement, which I think needs to be made
to the Nation:

America's public enemy number one in the United States is nuts dependent. In
order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out
offensive.

I have asked the Congress to provide the legislative authority and the funds
to fuel this kind of an offensive. This will be a worldwide offensive dealing
with the problems of sources of nut supply, as well as Americans who may be
stationed abroad, wherever they are in the world. It will be government wide,
pulling together the nine different fragmented areas within the government in
which this problem is now being handled, and it will be nationwide in terms of
a new educational program that we trust will result from the discussions that
we have had.

Together nuts and there users can be defeated.

~~~
seanp2k2
In all seriousness, this would probably lead to a higher ROI than the war on
terror.

------
einarvollset
This reminds me of a rather disturbing realization I had a few years ago. In
places like the Bay Area, it would take only a small handful of non-violent
protesters to completely shut down the major transit systems (aka the roads).
All they'd need to do is to slow, stop and then park 3-5 cars in strategic
places on 880, 80, 85, 101 and 280 and walk away. It would be mayhem.

~~~
dirtae
It's already been done in the Bay Area:
[https://twitter.com/i/moments/689241776549269504?lang=en](https://twitter.com/i/moments/689241776549269504?lang=en)

------
e9
Interesting how they call this illegal because airport is within 5 miles.
Airport is almost unrelated to this particular situation but I guess it's a
concrete way to make person liable.

~~~
dmitrygr
The law states that FAA owns airspace and that flying within 5nm of towered
airport without contacting tower is illegal. Simple.

~~~
foone
I checked, and that means it's basically illegal to fly a drone in the bay
area:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DB54FczUQAEQ5D6.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DB54FczUQAEQ5D6.jpg:large)

~~~
dionidium
It's not just the Bay Area. The restrictions and FAA guidelines are written in
a way that prohibits _almost all_ recreational flying in urban areas. I don't
think I've seen a single widely-shared drone video that wasn't afoul of the
law.

~~~
milkthefat
Depending on your definition of widely-shared:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP9KY3lNeBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP9KY3lNeBc)

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piinbinary
I'm curious why a drone was able to cause any issue. Could a bird or stray
piece of trash in the same area have caused the issue (was it a short?), or
did it require the force of the spinning blades?

~~~
lightedman
Squirrels, mice, rats, raccoons, and birds take out power stations all the
time. Many transformer stations are exposed to open air for cooling, with
nothing more than a fence topped with razor wire for a barrier. This makes for
easy, easy entry.

------
deckar01
Maybe drones should require liability insurance coverage. That should create a
market forces that encourages safer drone technology.

Disclosure: I work for an insurance company and previously owned a commercial
drone business.

~~~
asynchronous13
Also mandatory insurance for kites and balloons, either of which could have
caused the same damage.

~~~
seanp2k2
Especially kiteboarding kites (with sizes of 5-20sq meters) which are flown by
Sherman Island right near the high-voltage power lines which also go over the
river.

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patorjk
I love drones, it hurts to read something like this because I worry that the
public's gut reaction will be to ban them. However, it's only a matter of time
before these types of incidents add up. I think a step in the right direction
would be for drones to communicate to some kind of central hub, that way
responsibility for these types of things wouldn't be an issue, and people
could more easily contact surrounding airports/helipads (ex: before you launch
a signal could go out to the surrounding airports for notification).

~~~
bjl
I'm against a complete ban, but there should definitely be more restrictions
than we have currently. Strict licensing requirements and a total ban on
flying over private property (without explicit, written permission) seem like
no-brainers to me.

~~~
Houshalter
I hate this attitude. Many of the great technologies we have today were pretty
dangerous and feared when they first appeared. I honestly think if electricity
or automobiles were invented today, they would quickly be banned. Drones could
be incredibly useful for many purposes and your proposal would basically kill
them.

~~~
bsder
The problem is that drones really are a nuisance to everybody except the drone
flyer.

They are noisy. They get in the way. They can fall out of the air. etc.

~~~
Houshalter
The same problems apply to cars and airplanes and imagine the world if those
were banned early on.

~~~
bsder
Airplanes are not a great example. Airplanes were very much a hazard until the
FAA finally got serious ( PSA 182 is cited as a turning point:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_Flight_182](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_Flight_182))

Cars, in fact, exhibited almost _exactly_ the same kinds of problems we see in
drones right now:
[http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_86_1.html](http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_86_1.html)

In fact, cars caused far _MORE_ fatalities and came under scrutiny very
quickly.

The idea that past technologies somehow got adopted in an "unfettered,
unregulated field" is bogus revisionism.

~~~
Houshalter
I'm not sure what your point is. My whole point is that cars and airplanes
were incredibly dangerous and unregulated when they first were introduced.
Thank god they weren't banned or sued out of existence as a knee jerk
reaction. If cars or planes were invented today I have no doubt they would be
unable to take off. I doubt anyone would even invest in such technology.

We now laugh at stories of cities that set car speed limits at 5 miles per
hour and mandated an escort. But we are doing far sillier things today with
every new technology.

~~~
ghaff
I don't think anyone is proposing banning them. Among other things, many
people are skeptical that they should be allowed to fly willy-nilly over
everyone's private property. Which seems a reasonable question. After all, you
can't typically drive and often even walk on someone else's property.

I do think there are special circumstances where drone delivery of medicine
and other urgently needed items may very well make sense. One hour Amazon
delivery of a USB cable and a Red Bull? Probably not.

~~~
seanp2k2
Ok, so you own a drone and live in an apartment. You now can't fly it
anywhere. That's in effect the same as a ban. There is literally 1 RC airfield
within an hour drive of San Jose last time I looked into it. Most drone owners
would likely not buy them if there was an actually-enforced law like that.

------
hellbanner
Thanks for sharing. More evidence that power lines should be under ground.

Can you really not fly your drone "around people"? I thought you could fly in
parks.

~~~
devwastaken
I thought power lines, in contact with the dirt, can make the ground
electrocutive.

~~~
WJW
Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by electrocutive, not being a native
English speaker and all, but in my home country of the Netherlands over 90% of
power lines have been underground since the 50s without any ill effects...

~~~
mchannon
It's not a word, according to google ngram viewer. Two types of usage on
google, one dealing with dance music and the other from 100+-year-old
periodicals.

------
paulddraper
Sincere question: we've had RC model planes and helicopters for decades.

What about "drones" (I actually don't know if there is a difference; that's
just the word I hear) is uniquely concerning to the FAA and the general
public?

~~~
bsder
Simply: it took skill to pilot an RC plane or helicopter until the current
round of autopilots.

The amount of time you had to expend until you could simply keep the thing in
the air without crashing was large. This tended to keep the idiots out of the
hobby.

With modern drones, there is no such entry barrier. Any idiot can throw a
drone in the air and make it go somewhere.

------
msnower
It would be interested to see how startups like SkySafe
([https://www.skysafe.io/](https://www.skysafe.io/) \- backed by a16z) respond
to these kinds of incidents. I could see users of these startups wanting to
create "no-fly" zones to protect assets of theirs such as powerlines.

I think as drones grow to become more common in our daily lives, the "Drone
Security" industry will follow along.

------
notadoc
Personal drones are incredibly annoying at best.

I realize they can take interesting footage and have industrial uses, but at
the consumer level they are never anything beyond a loud invasive public
nuisance.

I'm sure in no time at all every self-obsessed youth will have a little selfie
drone following them around broadcasting live too. Who would have predicted
the future would be annoying narcissism?

------
sharemywin
Terrorist + Drone + powerline = I'm surprised we have power at all anymore.

~~~
ouid
Without power the drones won't work, so at worst we have dynamic equilibrium.

~~~
astrodust
Elon Musk rocking the boat.

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neil_s
Love that I can find my local news on HN

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dmitrygr
I hope they find the perp and hand him a reasonable jail sentence. A few
decades should do. You CANNOT fly anything within 5nm of a towered airport
without first contacting their tower. This was within 3nm of KNUQ.

This time he only hit a power line. Next time he'll collide with one of those
4-engine WW2-era trainer planes they fly out if KNUQ for practice at 500AGL...

~~~
radarsat1
Nanometers?

~~~
pm24601
nautical miles

------
c517402
This is timely:

[https://xkcd.com/1846/](https://xkcd.com/1846/)

------
maliker
I bet 10 bucks that this gets written in to a Silicon Valley episode this
season.

~~~
manningthegoose
Probably next season. This season's already been shot.

~~~
Mz
So, you just blew an easy ten bucks... ;-)

