A UK helicopter ambulance came within a few yards of colliding with a drone as it sought to land at a central London hospital, according to an official incident ruling. The finding ranked the near miss as an A category encounter, or one in which “a definite risk of collision had existed.”
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A DJI Inspire 2 drone being used on a commercial photography job has crashed into a high-rise in Sydney, injuring an occupant. The drone pilot reportedly lost control of the drone after sending it up approximately 10 meters (32 feet).
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A UK police officer has accidentally sent a drone plummeting 70 feet into a pond after unintentionally initiating the emergency cutoff. The drone was being used in a search and rescue mission when the unfortunate event took place.
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As you may now know, a man has been charged after a drone collided with a police helicopter in Los Angeles. DroneDJ has the inside story, including the original sworn complaint by an FBI agent.
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If you’re going to hit something with your drone, you don’t want it to be a police helicopter. But that’s what allegedly happened in Los Angeles two months ago — and charges were laid today. That’s the word from the U.S. attorney’s office, which has now charged a Hollywood man with one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft. 😱
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Armenia has shared that it used rockets to take down an Azerbaijani drone near the capital earlier this week during the countries fighting in the landlocked region of Nagorno-Karabakh, located in Azerbaijan but controlled by Armenian troops.
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An man in Blackburn, England, got a massive surprise when the EHang Ghostdrone 2.0’s battery he put on charge exploded within an hour of being plugged in. The man noticed the power went out in the house and went to investigate, and found the drone on fire in the living room.
A blaze is raging over a region called Darwen Moor near Manchester in the UK. But something else is also raging: a battle between emergency helicopters and gawker drones.
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The enormous hospital ship USNS Mercy at the Port of Los Angeles is quite a sight to see. But the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a message for drone photographers: Don’t get too close to see it.
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.
Earlier this month, a bushfire in the Perth suburb of Baldivis, Australia, didn’t allow firefighters to take advantage of aerial support for some time due to a rogue drone being spotted close to the fire. The aerial support was forced to hold off while the drone finally made its way back to the ground.
The latest Airprox report includes what is understood to be the closest-ever drone sighting in the UK. The report was made by the pilot of a NetJets Bombardier that was traveling from Nice, France, to London Luton Airport on August 26, 2019.
The pilot reported seeing the drone 14 miles west of the airport, at an elevation of 4,000 feet, while the jet was traveling 200 mph. Allegedly, the 14-seat, £46 million private jet passed the drone within a mere 10 feet.
An AIR7 HD helicopter was struck by an object, believed to be a drone, at 1,100 feet over downtown Los Angeles Wednesday night. The chopper had to make a precautionary landing.
At around 7:15 p.m., as the helicopter was flying over the downtown LA area, pilot and reporter Chris Cristi said that he and the crew heard and felt a bang as an object hit the tail of the chopper. ABC7 Eyewitness News reports the incident as the helicopter being struck by a drone, even though that has yet to be proven. The initial photos show significant damage to the AIR7 HD helicopter.
Update: it seems that ABC7 Eyewitness News has changed the title of their news story to: “AIR7 HD struck by suspected drone over downtown LA, makes precautionary landing.”
Update 2: NBC News reports: “Two FAA inspectors examined the helicopter this morning, the FAA said, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) requested that affected parts of the helicopter be removed and sent for analysis. The investigation into the incident is ongoing.”
Drone pilot Reuben Burciaga was fined $20,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after his fly-away DJI Phantom 3 drone landed right next to an active runway at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. The drone incident took place in June of 2018 when Burciaga wanted to take an aerial photo of a Ferris wheel. Early on during the flight, he lost control of the DJI Phantom 3. The drone then slowly drifted for more than two miles towards the airport before landing right next to an active runway. The FAA issued the ‘careless and reckless” drone pilot a fine of $14,700 that increased to around $20,000 after Burciaga failed to pay or appeal on time. We have included the original video of the drone flight that was uploaded by Burciaga below.
Updated with the original flight logs of the DJI Phantom 3. You can download them here.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to shoot down drones near airports, as we saw in our story from earlier today, to “mitigate” the risk the unmanned aircraft pose to air traffic. The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Federal Air Marshal Service would operate a Defense Department counter-unmanned-aircraft system, according to new plans. Two Republican lawmakers, however, protested against the proposed “Concept of Operations.”
Last Thursday, a drone flew over a crash scene in Dover, Wisconsin, and interfered with first responders who were trying to transport injured people to local hospitals by helicopter. That night a minivan and a pickup truck were involved in a crash at the intersection of Highway J and Highway 11. Several people were injured, and the scene was described as chaotic. The intersection was shut down for five hours into Friday morning.
According to experts, the reported drone sighting that shut down East Midlands Airport for about an hour might have been a bird. The police are still investigating reports of a drone sighting at the airport on Wednesday morning. Police said that ‘the movement’ of the unknown object suggested it might have been a drone, however one expert said it was “extremely unlikely” that a drone would have been able to fly so close to the airport.
The alleged drone incidents took place over the weekend during the Download music festival at a nearby park. Supposedly three drones disrupted flights at the East Midlands airport. An investigation has been launched by detectives and one drone pilot has since been interviewed. We know from previous drone incidents that very often no proof of an actual drone has been provided, causing many industry insiders, including DJI, to warn people not to jump to conclusions. In this case, one drone pilot has bee interviewed. We will follow it closely to see if any drone evidence will surface.
Remember the Aeromexico Boeing 737 that was hit by a drone? Yes? Well, it now turns out that it wasn’t. The Grupo Aeromexico SAB airliner that supposedly was hit by a drone last December was not hit by an unmanned aircraft at all. The damage to the radome or nosecone of the airplane resulted from a poorly executed repair, causing it to ‘likely’ collapse and crack as a result of changing air pressure during its descent near Tijuana, Mexico. Drones are often pointed to as the culprits but so far the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has only confirmed two cases.
Last night a drone illegally flew over Fenway Park during a Red Sox-Blue Jays game. According to Boston Police, the drone was first spotted around 9:30 pm and was last seen around 10:20 pm. The Red Sox said that they have reported the incident to the Police. Both the police and the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) are looking into the situation. Flying drones over crowds or over a packed stadium are against the FAA’s regulations. DJI issued a statement on the drone incident as well.
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.
One year ago, a micro-light airplane crash-landed in New-Zealand. The pilot of the airplane, Rod Vaughan, who also happens to be a journalist, had implied that a drone was to blame for the accident. At the time, the mainstream media ran with the story and continued to paint drones as the culprit. In this video, Bruce, also known as XJet on YouTube, explains how an investigation report from the Civil Aviation Authority of New-Zealand (CAA) now proofs his theory right. A drone did NOT bring down Vaughan’s airplane but a failed windscreen, due to prolonged exposure to high UV levels in New-Zealand, was to blame.
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.
The recent drone incident at Dublin Airport has caused fresh calls for more robust drone legislation in Ireland. The current drone rules are not strong enough to stop people from flying drones over airports. Keep in mind though that we have not seen any evidence that drones were indeed to blame for the incidents at Gatwick, Heathrow, Newark or Dublin. Even DJI issued a statement urging people to not blame drone right away as the likely culprits.
