What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/what-may-be-first-drone-linked-copter-crash-being-investigated

by cdcro • 8 years ago

60 71 8 years ago

dang• 8 years ago

Url changed from https://www.techspot.com/news/73326-authorities-investigatin..., which points to this.

bri3d4• 8 years ago

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.

woofyman• 8 years ago

Flight instructor saw a drone during low-altitude hovering exercises with a student, panicked, tried to land, and hit a bush

The pilot didn’t panic. The drone was directly in front of the helicopter.

bri3d4• 8 years ago

I was making an unfair inference about the pilot's mental state, so I removed it. With that being said I still strongly question the relation of the drone to the crash physically and believe the effect of the drone on the pilot's decision-making is the interesting part of this story. Landing as an evasive maneuver doesn't make a lot of sense to me and the actual cause of the crash seems to be a situational awareness issue.

nraynaud2• 8 years ago

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

bri3d4• 8 years ago

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.

_s• 8 years ago

Generally GA aircraft have a 500’ AGL limit to adhere to; and it’s higher above built-up / high density areas.

mpetrovich• 8 years ago

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

taneq• 8 years ago

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?

bri3d4• 8 years ago

This feels like a "I flipped my car dodging a squirrel" situation to me, as well, although the FAA models do support the potential of 1.9kg toys to cause fairly substantial damage. I think that given all documented collisions mentioned in the article resulted in zero-to-minor damage to the larger vehicle, drones are probably best ignored as well, but to make such a sweeping generalization in something as safety-critical as aircraft will probably require years more research.

13of40• 8 years ago

Here's what happens when a Blackhawk hits one with it's rotor: https://petapixel.com/2018/01/02/dji-drone-collided-us-army-...

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...

mbrameld• 8 years ago

Helicopter pilot here. We take evasive action. In forward flight that's probably going to be a quick stop to give me time to see what the bird's doing and then flying away from the bird. If I were working on hovering maneuvers and a large bird flew near I would set down until it left.

raverbashing• 8 years ago

Helicopters are hard. It might not have had enough time to do that (before hitting the drone)

huffpopo4• 8 years ago

Helicopters are slow, and they probably didn't have the rotor speed needed to yank the collective.

Hitting a 2kg drone would result in expensive repairs, e.g. $30K for replacement rotor blades and you still might crash.

I probably would have taken the hit but I'm much better off than the average R22 pilot who often operate or razor thin margins.

That said; my bet is that there was no drone. My guess is the student made a small mistake, the teacher took over and made a bigger mistake, and both want to keep their jobs/future carers. Drones make an easy target to lie about and are hated anyway. Not to say there are no irresponsible drone pilots, just currently I think it's more likely heli-pilot error at this stage. My hope is the GPS tracking in the phantom well let us know for sure.

dzhiurgis• 8 years ago

Was it 2kg or 0.5kg drone? Is there much difference between two, afaik all of them are more or less plastic.

If planes and helicopter are ok with hitting birbs, perhaps we should regulate drone manufacturing to be more like birbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-27Bk_RME

huffpopo4• 8 years ago

I'm curios on the 10+ downvotes this received since posting; would someone care to give me a reason. Thx

GiorgioG3• 8 years ago

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.

cmurf6• 8 years ago

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.

kelchm2• 8 years ago

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

GiorgioG3• 8 years ago

If there is an accident someone made a mistake.

Yep the instructor smacked the chopper into a bush/tree/etc. The drone didn’t cause the crash, the instructor’s reaction caused it. We don’t know enough about what happened to know how far away and what actions the drone took which caused the instructor to panic (and overreact?)

inamberclad• 8 years ago

I think part 107 only applies to regulated commercial operation of drones/UASs. Private operation is still unregulated.

cma• 8 years ago

They weren't flying in a remote area. It was a small island with a big residential development.

GiorgioG3• 8 years ago

Maybe my reading comprehension skills fail me but here's what the article says:

"In the Charleston incident, the student was practicing low-altitude hovering in a remote area, according to the police report. As she turned the aircraft around to continue the lesson, a small white drone appeared, the instructor told police."

cmurf6• 8 years ago

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.

jsjohnst9• 8 years ago

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.

newdayrising• 8 years ago

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?

craftyguy2• 8 years ago

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.

jsjohnst9• 8 years ago

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).

trothamel• 8 years ago

The NSA and other intelligence services tapping the communications between the terrorists and ensuring that they're arrested before the plan starts.

wvenable2• 8 years ago

The weight of the payload.

dredmorbius2• 8 years ago

A few ounces of shaped charge at altitude would likely lead to explosive decompression.

At lower altitude, less impact, though it would still be problematic.

Keeping the charge on the target aircraft whilst it climbed to cruising height is likely the hard part.

jsjohnst9• 8 years ago

The fact most drones have a very small lift capacity is the biggest issue.

As to how to stop it, it’s just like any other terrorist attack. SIGINT is the main tool.

ryanmarsh• 8 years ago

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.

jsjohnst9• 8 years ago

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

axau6• 8 years ago

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.

wvenable2• 8 years ago

I hope one day drones are regulated similarly to guns

What country are you in?

axau6• 8 years ago

USA, which, contrary to popular belief, has lots of restrictions on the use (though not necessarily ownership) of guns. Try discharging a weapon anywhere near a major metropolitan area and let me know how it goes :)

bennesvig• 8 years ago

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.

axau6• 8 years ago

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.

What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated

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