Here’s a fun little item that’ll lift enduringly grounded spirits around Gatwick and Dublin airports with a boost of schadenfreude. According to media reports, a UAV sighting caused flights to be halted for over hour in and out of the Chinese city of Shenzhen – headquarters and home of global drone giant DJI.
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Alas, yet another report has come down of a close call between a passenger plane and an illegally operated uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) – this time from Scotland. The near-miss incident involved a drone coming within 100 feet of a commercial airliner during its approach to Glasgow’s Paisley Airport – and at night to boot.
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An incident involving a drone and a commercial aircraft is being described as “serious” by Finnish Transport and Communications agency Traficom. It happened May 13 of this year, but the information has only been released in recent days.
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In a first, nighttime drone operations are being conducted at two airports in the United States to test strategies for flying drones safely and effectively in controlled airspace.
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At the end of last month and the beginning of this month, Brussels Airport partnered with Skeyes to test the use of drones around the airport to increase the safety, security, and efficiency of operations. The two also tested a drone detection system that will keep it safe from rogue drones entering the airspace.
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Over the last few months, Alice Springs Airport staff in Northern Australia have noticed an increase in illegal drone flights as a result of COIVD grounding a large fleet of aircraft at the airport. It makes for interesting but illegal and dangerous aerial photos.
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Altitude Angel announced last week that its GuardianUTM Platform will be deployed at Cranfield Airport in England in an effort to allow research institutes, students, and private enterprises to interface with the GuardianUTM O/S and test it out.
Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam will soon begin a one-week trial of inspection drones that will be used to check the taxiways, buildings, and aircraft. It will also be using drones to transport light goods between different locations within the airport.
No place is more dangerous for a drone to fly than near airports. Not only are the skies crowded, but aircraft may take off or land at low altitudes within the 400-foot ceiling drones are supposed to fly under.
A drone sighting at Frankfurt Airport yesterday caused the airport to close and forced flights to be diverted to nearby airports. The airport’s air traffic control closed the airport until further notice with police being called and a search for the drone beginning.
Drones are being used to inspect the airfield at Seville Airport in a pilot project seeing if drones can be used in the daily operation of an airport without causing interruptions. The drones have been introduced as a part of the airport’s technological initiative.
Madrid-Barajas Airport was forced to close on Monday for two hours when two pilots spotted a drone flying near the takeoff and landing area just east of the city center. The closure left passengers stranded, planes grounded, and forced incoming aircraft to divert to other airports.
According to safety experts, UK drone incidents rose more than a third in 2018. The UK Airprox board recorded 125 dangerously close encounters or drone incidents in 2018. This number is more a third higher than in 2017 when only 93 drone incidents were recorded. 71 incidents were recorded in 2016. It should come as no surprise that 39 of the 125 drone incidents occurred at the UK’s busiest airport Heathrow.
Last Friday flights to and from Frankfurt Airport in Germany were briefly interrupted after a drone was spotted in the area. According to the Associated Press, operator FraPort halted takeoffs and landings at Germany’s busiest airport for 29 minutes as a precautionary measure late Friday afternoon. As with the recent drone scares at Gatwick, Heathrow, and Newark Airport, no evidence of any drones was provided by the Frankfurt Airport officials. It will be interesting to see if any proof will surface in the coming days.
Now, here’s a perspective that you don’t see too often: “the benefits of using drones at airports.” Almost always when we hear the words drone and airport in the same sentence it is a sure sign of trouble. However, the use of drones can also benefit an airport. Here’s how.
Last week, I flew from New York to the Netherlands with a stopover at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where I noticed DJI’s marketing campaign “Now it’s Epic”, to promote their Mavic Air drone. We got in touch with JCDecaux, one of the world’s largest display advertising companies, to find out more about the drone makers latest campaign, and they informed us that the 10-second-long promotional video runs at five different airports around the world and is planned in conjunction with DJI’s partnership with TripAdvisor to promote what is supposed to be the ultimate travel drone.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) just approved first responders at the fourth busiest airport in the world, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to fly their drones directly over the airfield. DFW Airport will be the first airport in the US that is allowed to do so.
The Department of Civil Aviation in Malaysia is about to crack down on the illegal drone flying in the country and will set up its own enforcement unit to put a stop to it.
According to industry sources, about 1 million drones have been sold in the Asian country over the last four years, but what many drone owners do not realize is that is illegal to fly an unmanned aerial vehicle or drone for recreational or commercial purposes outside the compounds of their home. According to Civil Aviation Regulations 2016, all drone activity, no matter the size and purpose, requires a flying permit from DCA.
Since April 2016, there have been five hazardous or at least unauthorized drone flights reported, flying too close to the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Birmingham, Alabama, which happens to be the busiest airport in the state. This was revealed by ABC 33/40 after a review of the Federal Aviation Administration records. In two cases the drones passed within 200 feet of private airplanes. These reports come in the wake of other drone incidents over Staten Island, NY, Canada, New Zealand, and England.
The New Zealand Herald reported two drone incidents with airplanes on their approach to Auckland airport. A passenger on board the flight said that the drone passed so close to the airplane, it was only meters below the airplane as it came into land at Auckland airport. This report comes in after we reported on similar incidents in The Netherlands, Canada, and Great Brittain.
Earlier this summer, on July 2nd to be exact there was a drone flying in the restricted airspace of Gatwick Airport in Great Britain. This 2-minute video released by NATS shows the chaos caused by the drone pilot. Various airplanes were directed to holding patterns and some planes ended up diverting to other airports.
On Sunday the Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau said that for the first time in Canada a drone had collided with a passenger airplane. The commercial Skyjet plane was struck as it was approaching Jean Lesage airport in Quebec City on Thursday. Garneau confirmed that the airplane only sustained minor damage and was able to land safely. He was extremely relieved that nobody got hurt. He continued to say:
“This should not have happened. That drone should not have been there. It could have been much more serious. If the drone had collided with the cockpit or the engine, the incident could have been catastrophic.”
BBC News just reported that an Airbus 319 narrowly missed a large drone while approaching Gatwick Airport. A UK Airprox Board report revealed that 130 lives were at risk when a large diameter drone passed directly over the wing, in between the wingtip and the fuselage. An “airprox” is when distances between aircraft are seen to compromise safety. The incident happened on July 9th when a drone was “flown into conflict” with the Airbus 319. According to the report, there had been a high chance of collision.
