
Drone hits British Airways plane approaching Heathrow Airport - k-mcgrady
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36067591
======
awinter-py
If you're a C-SPAN junkie like me you look forward with christmas-morning glee
to the call-in episodes about drone laws.

There is exactly one type of person who wakes up at 5am to hold the line for
30 minutes to ask a question about drones, and it is (you guessed it) local
yokels who are planning to shoot a drone down and looking for permission.

The anti-vaxxers know more science words but the anti-drone crowd is much more
entertaining.

~~~
threeseed
Please don't associate anti-vaxxers with the anti-drone crowd. People have
actually gotten sick and died from preventable diseases caught from
unvaccinated children.

And I can't imagine many people are suggesting drones be banned. But many
including myself believe they do need to be regulated and situations like this
are why.

~~~
jjoonathan
"Regulated" can mean anything from "enforcement of reasonable precaution" to
"banned on the basis of irrational fear." Existing regulations already meet
the former standard IMO -- it's not like the drone operator was operating
legally and will get away scott-free even if caught.

> A Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) spokesman said it was "totally
> unacceptable" to fly drones close to airports, and anyone flouting the rules
> can face "severe penalties, including imprisonment"

Calls to "regulate" are then _actually_ calls to increase bureaucratic
barriers and harshen penalties, which will likely have a disproportionately
large impact on legitimate applications of the technology and a
disproportionately small impact on those who choose, as this drone operator
did, to break the rules.

~~~
taspeotis
> Existing regulations already meet the former standard

The article implicitly makes this point, too.

> Steve Landells, from the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa), said it
> had been "only a matter of time before we had a drone strike". _He called
> for greater enforcement of existing rules._

(Emphasis mine.)

~~~
jjoonathan
I'd say it explicitly makes the point too :-)

> Flying a drone near an airport can already be punished with up to five years
> in prison, and rules also forbid taking them above 400ft (122m) or near
> buildings and crowds of people.

------
chinathrow
The plane has been cleared for the next flight already.

[https://www.aeroinside.com/item/7392/british-
airways-a320-at...](https://www.aeroinside.com/item/7392/british-
airways-a320-at-london-on-apr-17th-2016-drone-impacts-aircraft)

------
clavalle
This raises the very important question: is the fear of drones hitting planes
completely overblown?

~~~
jpollock
A canada goose can weigh from 7-14 lbs, ducks are much smaller (3.5lbs). We
test planes against bird strike. However, birds don't have screws and
batteries. Even with that, they bring down planes (AWE1549)

There is a reason why airports are very, very careful about the vehicles that
drive onto runways - FOD (foreign object damage) is a very real thing with
very severe consequences when a plane is on approach and take-off.

~~~
nkurz
_However, birds don 't have screws and batteries._

This often gets mentioned (and is obviously true) but I'm doubtful (but not
certain) that it makes that much difference. Things we think about as "soft"
can be remarkably hard at high velocity. At 120 mph terminal velocity, water
and concrete are similarly fatal: the incompressibility matters more than the
hardness.

This isn't to say that drone strikes are not an issue, only that I don't think
they are significantly more of an issue than bird strikes. And birds can do a
lot of damage at several hundred miles per hour. When you are hit by one,
whether it's filled with bones or metal probably isn't the biggest concern.

~~~
molecule
_> Things we think about as "soft" can be remarkably hard at high velocity. At
120 mph terminal velocity, water and concrete are similarly fatal: the
incompressibility matters more than the hardness._

And yet planes fly through clouds and rain at several hundred mph without
issue, though the same wouldn't be said about flying through concrete...

The issue here is _relative_ hardness. Bone is _relatively_ soft to titanium
turbine blades, whereas screws and titanium turbine blades are in the same
ballpark of hardness, so are catastrophic when they meet when spinning @
several thousand rpm...

------
basicplus2
Surely the main issue here is the risk of someone filling a drone with
explosives.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Um, no. E=m*v^2, note that the energy rises with the square of velocity. Just
hitting a quickly spinning blade on a fast flying machine is quite sufficient
for massive damage. [http://www.suasnews.com/2015/11/vt-researchers-study-jet-
eng...](http://www.suasnews.com/2015/11/vt-researchers-study-jet-engines-
ingesting-drones/)

------
beedogs
Who are these clowns flying drones near airports, anyways?

------
smoyer
It used to be that incidents like these would be reported as UFOs. I wonder if
someone had advanced drone technology 50 (ish) years ago? Or are some of the
current "sightings" UFOs but there's now a plausible explanation (drones). The
most curious report is the drone with the "balloon-like center" \- might this
have been reported as a weather balloon in the past?

Note: I'm using the term UFO as it's original acronym and don't mean to imply
they're flown by the proverbial little green men.

EDIT: I'm using the term "little green men" in the gender neutral form and am
not intentionally impuning the flying capabilities of little green women.

~~~
VLM
I think its more interesting that UFO reports from 50 yrs ago never included
drone size deployments, therefore the reports from 50 yrs ago are quite likely
inaccurate, unless the visitors to Earth were somehow limited to pre-2010-ish
era technology.

~~~
13of40
Kind of like the mystery airships that were plaguing us at the end of the 19th
century? But I think the OP was talking more about normal, mortal, earthbound
humans having some garage-built technology that got classified as UFOs. Those
would necessarily have to be made with the technology of the day.

------
microcolonel
Why don't they just shoot them down when they approach airports? Seems like a
much more measured and appropriate response than "no drones anywhere without
documents".

~~~
codecamper
How about just jamming them?

Nobody needs to be flying drones near airports. Seriously.

I'm certainly not interested in pulling this off.. but how hard would it be to
just simultaneously launch a swarm into a busy airport while planes are
landing?

~~~
paulmd
"Return-to-home" functionality is quite common. The GPS knows where it took
off, and where it is now, and in the event that it loses the control signal
it'll (try to) navigate back home.

Having a drone under control is almost always preferable to having a drone out
of control, particularly in the pattern of a major airport. If you're going to
take it down, it needs to happen in a way that _gives you control_ of the
drone, not just messes up their control.

------
adam12
Title makes it sound like a US military drone shot down a passenger plane.

~~~
jrockway
"Toy airplane seen near passenger plane" doesn't bring in the ad views.

~~~
FireBeyond
"$1500 'toy' hits passenger plane". Yours is a little dismissive.

I love drones, though I don't own one, though I do have two RC helicopters
(the 'proper' ones, like an Align Trex, not a $20 mall toy) but your
interpretation isn't the greatest.

~~~
jrockway
My complaint is the word "drone". It's designed to sound scarier than it is.
The previous generation called them "model airplanes".

Language evolves and all that, but also introduces bias. The "done scare"
would never be a popular thing if someone hadn't come up with a scary word for
model airplanes. (But I agree that "model airplane" isn't that great of a term
for some of the higher-end photography drones. It's more than just a toy, it's
an interesting tool for filmmaking. I'm still not all that afraid of them,
however.)

~~~
Piskvorrr
In most cases, there's a _legal_ distiction between "looks like an airplane
but smaller" (model airplane) and "looks like a bunch of sticks and
propellers" (drone). The rules for both tend to be similar, but not quite the
same.

------
aaron695
I call total bullshit.

How could a pilot even tell? There was no damage. Did they hear it hit over
the engine? Ha.

The first time a drone hits a plane it's going to be from terrorist activity.

They don't accidentally hit planes as we see from the 1000s of 'near misses'
but not a single hit.

~~~
threeseed
What are you on about ?

I think we can safely assume that British Airways pilots/officials have not
fabricated this report and genuinely believe a drone has struck the aircraft.
And why would you think it would have come from a terrorist. Far more likely
to be some kid who got a drone for Christmas and interested in visiting an
airport.

~~~
RealityVoid
To be honest, the article is thin on details and full of speculations. The
pilot thinks he struck something resembling a drone but I doubt he would be
able to tell the nature of the object from a moving plane.

The reason I greatly doubt it is a drone is that the number of drones is
relatively low while the number of birds is high. There are economic and legal
incentives for _not_ flying close to airports so I think the number of
possible accidents is massively overblown. In light of these facts, I await
more proof of the fact it was a drone, because now, I see none.

I don't believe that the British Airways have fabricated this report, it's
just that they don't seem to be sure of if being a drone themselves.

