'Intentional' UAV / Aircraft Collision ?

AeroJ · Sep 3, 2018

Initially I thought this article was Sky just being their usual sensationalist selves, but I did actually find the source report, and that is actually what the pilot said !

Drone flown 'deliberately' towards light aircraft

The pilot had "no doubt that it was being deliberately flown under the flight path in an attempt to collide with an aircraft".

This is a new and worrying variation on a theme there - a pilot actually convinced that a UAV was flown deliberately at his craft with the intention of colliding with it :/
Personally I think that's a pilot inferring things he can't possibly know from only the briefest near-contact sighting, but I doubt the general public reading it will have any reason to question his account...

Obviously the drone pilot was 100% at fault in this one - it was at 350 ft in controlled airspace around London's RAF Northolt, but it's extra-uncomfortable reading to find that the pilot has reported it as intentional, so thought I'd share it here for anyone interested...

Deleted member 13635 · Sep 3, 2018

AeroJ said:
Initially I thought this article was Sky just being their usual sensationalist selves, but I did actually find the source report, and that is actually what the pilot said !

Drone flown 'deliberately' towards light aircraft

The pilot had "no doubt that it was being deliberately flown under the flight path in an attempt to collide with an aircraft".

This is a new and worrying variation on a theme there - a pilot actually convinced that a UAV was flown deliberately at his craft with the intention of colliding with it :/
Personally I think that's a pilot inferring things he can't possibly know from only the briefest near-contact sighting, but I doubt the general public reading it will have any reason to question his account...

Obviously the drone pilot was 100% at fault in this one - it was at 350 ft in controlled airspace around London's RAF Northolt, but it's extra-uncomfortable reading to find that the pilot has reported it as intentional, so thought I'd share it here for anyone interested...

Lock the drone pilot up and throw away the key

Ren57 · Sep 3, 2018

AeroJ said:
Obviously the drone pilot was 100% at fault in this one - it was at 350 ft in controlled airspace around London's RAF Northolt, but it's extra-uncomfortable reading to find that the pilot has reported it as intentional, so thought I'd share it here for anyone interested...

If it is true, then yes the drone pilot deserves a jolly good talking to from the men in blue! But you sort of answered your own question by inferring that, how could the pilot possibly know it was deliberate? And of course, he couldn't possibly know, unless he's a Vulcan and had managed to do a mind-meld with the drone pilot!

I'm always very wary when I see articles like this. The article says 'a small white drone' which would probably point towards a P4 or something similar and yet in the article they show a Mavic Pro. Like you said, the whole incident would have taken a matter of seconds, it could easily have been a seagull. I've not looked/checked but I take it that where the drone was flying would've been in a NFZ? Knowing DJI products, I can tell you that if it was NFZ, then the drone pilot would've had to have gone to some lengths to be able to fly there. Not impossible for him to do that, there are ways around NFZ firmware I'm sure we all know. But would someone really fly a £1500 piece of equipment deliberately hoping to hit an aircraft? It's possible but I think unlikely, though there are some real nutters out there! I'd like to see a lot more evidence. If it was a DJI product being flown, won't DJI have a record of the flight? I thought that was the whole point of their sign-in before you fly thing?

AeroJ · Sep 3, 2018

Yep, the airfield itself is a RED DJI NFZ, and it was 1 mile west of the airport in class D controlled airspace. So it could have been an older phantom or a clone from the days where NFZ's on drones weren't a thing. I don't know how DJI handle legacy stuff in that regard, but I know my old flamewheels don't demand an update of software when I turn them on, so I could still fly them anywhere and up to ridiculous altitudes if I were so minded...

I think I am more worried than normal by this because the only reason (and reason is very much the wrong word) I can think of to deliberately fly a drone into the landing path of a light aircraft is if you are trying to cause massive harm or looking to injure or murder people, and there's a big difference between that, and the general idiocy that is so far the limit of what we have seen in the hobby. I just don't want the public to think of us as potential murderers as well !

That pilot has been able to imply that in his report, and the article, and indeed the UKAB has just 'gone with it'.

FlushVision · Sep 3, 2018

AeroJ said:
Yep, the airfield itself is a RED DJI NFZ, so it could have been an older phantom or a clone from the days where NFZ's on drones weren't a thing. I don't know how DJI handle legacy stuff in that regard, but I know my old flamewheels don't demand an update of software when I turn them on, so I could still fly them anywhere and up to ridiculous altitudes if I were so minded...

I think I am more worried than normal by this because the only reason (and reason is very much the wrong word) I can think of to deliberately fly a drone into the landing path of a light aircraft is if you are trying to cause massive harm or looking to injure or murder people, and there's a big difference between that, and the general idiocy that is so far the limit of what we have seen in the hobby. I just don't want the public to think of us as potential murderers as well ! That pilot has been able to imply that in his report, and the article, and indeed the UKAB has just 'gone with it'.

I have an elderly Phantom (a P2V+) and, while I have no knowledge about it's ability to fly in a NFZ...I've never tried it, I do know that it is possible to alter it's height limit to whatever I want via a laptop and GUI. Currently it's set at 400 feet but if I had a desire to go and break the law tomorrow there is absolutely nothing to stop me from doing that...except the law of course.

Incidentally, the last available firmware update for it was in summer 2015.

Ren57 · Sep 3, 2018

AeroJ said:
Yep, the airfield itself is a RED DJI NFZ, so it could have been an older phantom or a clone from the days where NFZ's on drones weren't a thing. I don't know how DJI handle legacy stuff in that regard, but I know my old flamewheels don't demand an update of software when I turn them on, so I could still fly them anywhere and up to ridiculous altitudes if I were so minded...

I think I am more worried than normal by this because the only reason (and reason is very much the wrong word) I can think of to deliberately fly a drone into the landing path of a light aircraft is if you are trying to cause massive harm or looking to injure or murder people, and there's a big difference between that, and the general idiocy that is so far the limit of what we have seen in the hobby. I just don't want the public to think of us as potential murderers as well ! That pilot has been able to imply that in his report, and the article, and indeed the UKAB has just 'gone with it'.

Yes, older products would certainly be able to fly in a NFZ. So we're back to the original light aircraft pilots statement that it was a deliberate' action. How could he possibly know that? If indeed it was a drone in the first place and without any corroborating evidence whatsoever, I'm inclined to think that it wasn't a drone at all. There must've been other people around in the area, did anyone else not see anything? Anything at all that backs up what the pilot is saying...... Or is he just inferring that because it is a NFZ, that if it was a drone, it must have been deliberately flown in a NFZ, so was obviously trying to take his aircraft out?! Not just some numpty, who has no idea of the law, or indeed what a NFZ even is. I know ignorance of the law is no excuse, but it happens every day. Then again, no matter how unlikely I think it is, it could indeed have been a deliberate act. In which case, this guy needs to go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200....!

Ren57 · Sep 3, 2018

Sorry, when I said 'this guy', what I really meant of course was 'this person'! Please don't report me to the politically correct police

AeroJ · Sep 3, 2018

Actually we are all just assuming the light aircraft pilot was correct that it was a drone - in the actual report (half way down this page) the pilot thinks it's a helium balloon initially !
And let's not forget all the things that have been claimed to be drones and have later turned out to be plastic bags etc !!

Ren57 · Sep 3, 2018

AeroJ said:
Actually we are all just assuming the light aircraft pilot was correct that it was a drone - in the actual report (half way down this page) the pilot thinks it's a helium balloon initially !
And let's not forget all the things that have been claimed to be drones and have later turned out to be plastic bags etc !!

When I see stories like this, I never assume anything. Call me old fashioned but I'd like to see a little more investigation when stuff like this is reported. And this incident will probably go down as another so called near miss with a drone. Just because the aircraft pilot says it was. He files a reports and says what he alleges to have seen but who follows it up? As far as I can tell, the CAA just look at the report as filed by the pilot and they decide without any further investigation exactly what happened. In other words, it was a drone end of. I find it hard to believe that so many pilots have claimed to have had a near miss with a drone sometimes at crazy altitudes, maybe all pilots really do have super human eyesight capable of taking in all that information in a couple of seconds. Me, If I fly (whatever drone I may be flying) away from me a few hundred feet away maybe a couple of hundred feet in altitude, If I never take my eyes off it I can keep track of it no problem. Get distracted or look at my telemetry screen for a second and then look back, even if I know exactly where it is, it's bloody hard to find it again!

AeroJ · Sep 4, 2018

Today, the Sun have got it as well, tagged with the search term 'terrorism' among others...

Drone 'deliberately' flown at plane landing at RAF base in bid 'to cause crash'

Note their caption, which shows a stock image of a plane, and identifies it as the one 'targeted in the attack', as if that was anything like a proven fact at this stage

FlushVision · Sep 4, 2018

AeroJ said:
Today, the Sun have got it as well, tagged with the search term 'terrorism' among others...

Drone 'deliberately' flown at plane landing at RAF base in bid 'to cause crash'

Note their caption, which shows a stock image of a plane, and identifies it as the one 'targeted in the attack', as if that was anything like a proven fact at this stage

Tabloid sensationalism at it's very best (or worst)

Ren57 · Sep 4, 2018

AeroJ said:
Today, the Sun have got it as well, tagged with the search term 'terrorism' among others...

Well that's alright then, if it's in The Sun, it must be true......Oh dear, what's the world coming to? Well at least they got the colour (and probably) the make of the drone right. Unless it was a seagull of course and I don't think DJI manufacture seagulls?

I have an alternative headline that they could use......

"Pilot with telepathic powers senses drone being deliberately flown at aircraft"!

A pilot of a light aircraft on approach to RAF Northolt used his supernatural powers to sense that a drone was being deliberately flown at his aircraft. He also sensed that the drone pilot had only one thing on his mind. And that was to cause the aircraft to crash! When asked if it could have been a bird, the pilot replied "No, I used my telepathic powers to determine that it was a drone. I also sensed that the pilot was flying from a nearby park".

Although no-one else in the area reported seeing a drone the pilot was adamant it was a drone, despite first sensing that it was a helium balloon!....

FlushVision · Sep 4, 2018

Ren57 said:
Well that's alright then, if it's in The Sun, it must be true......Oh dear, what's the world coming to? Well at least they got the colour (and probably) the make of the drone right. Unless it was a seagull of course and I don't think DJI manufacture seagulls?

I have an alternative headline that they could use......

"Pilot with telepathic powers senses drone being deliberately flown at aircraft"!

A pilot of a light aircraft on approach to RAF Northolt used his supernatural powers to sense that a drone was being deliberately flown at his aircraft. He also sensed that the drone pilot had only one thing on his mind. And that was to cause the aircraft to crash! When asked if it could have been a bird, the pilot replied "No, I used my telepathic powers to determine that it was a drone. I also sensed that the pilot was flying from a nearby park".

Although no-one else in the area reported seeing a drone the pilot was adamant it was a drone, despite first sensing that it was a helium balloon!....

That's funny. I couldn't have done better

Rich Inc. · Sep 8, 2018

After what happened in Venezuela, I can see an issue in the future. It would make sense, for many different reasons. A plane could process a drone, and still land-prop or jet. Its other things, attached to the drone, that will be an issue