FAA records detail hundreds of close calls between airplanes and drones | Hacker News Reader

FAA records detail hundreds of close calls between airplanes and drones

washingtonpost.com

38 pointsshahryc71 comments

There's a common joke among us multicopter pilots about DJI Phantom owners.

The majority (by quite a large margin) of these 'close calls' are caused by regular Joes buying a $1000 DJI Phantom and running it with the throttle all the way open to see how high they can go.

Sure, it makes for a cool shot with the camera, but it's wayyyyy far outside of the AMA and FAA guidelines of 400' altitude ceiling.

Personally, I'm glad that the FAA is documenting it. I just hope that the incredibly daft actions of a few don't ruin it for the rest of us.

As an owner of DJI Phantom multicopter it makes me sad to hear that we're all tarred with the same brush.

Out of interest, what makes you "multicopter pilots" and other people just "owners"?

You're a pilot of a quadcopter. You're an owner of a specific make/model of quadcopter.

Incidentally, I don't intend to knock the whole of all DJI owners (the Inspire is an amazing piece of hardware), it just seems to be the stereotype that DJI owners are more fast and loose with the regulations.

That's part of the knock. DJI Phantom owners are stereotypically kids (or adults) who know nothing about multicopters, but fly them around breaking all kinds of safety rules.

Does anyone know much about multicopters before they buy one? I know I didn't. Pretty much all I did was look up the regulations in various countries and then had at it.

Agruably, there's a significant difference between:

1: Collecting parts, soldering them together, programming and tuning a device, learning about how it all works, failing sometimes, then being able to fly 100'+ in the air

and

2: Buying a pre-built quad and skimming the FAA regulations. Unbox it and walk outside. Crank the throttle all the way to max and stare with glee as GPS keeps it at 10,000 feet right over your house.

This ends up sounding like "kids these days". Did you build your own computer? From the gates up? Oh, well then you're not a real engineer... It's usually an ego based distinction too.

Maybe, but it's hard to argue there isn't something to it. I think for each technology you can distinguish three types of users. 1) Those who care about it for itself - in this case the ones assembling their own drones, or willing to at least understand them on a deep level. 2) Those who treat it as just a tool, means to an end - think people doing air photos for money with drones. And 3), tourists - those who don't know a thing about the tech, don't want to know about it, but come drooling because it's cool and shiny.

Usually the third group does stupid shit (as in stupid stupid, not smart stupid), the first one gets angry at "kids these days", and the second doesn't care as long as it doesn't affect their use of their tools.

I find this model to accurately describe quite a lot interactions in the general tech sphere. So for instance in programming, the group 1) is what you call "hackers", and the primary folks who get religious over editors or programming languages. Group 2) mostly looks at it and says "meh". Those are the "product-focused" people, the "professionals". Group 3) are kids that try to flock to CS because it's cool and pays a lot.

Or, Google screwed up the deployment of Glass, because they marketed and sold it to rich people from Group 3) instead of Group 1) (Glass itself wasn't a good enough tool to create the Group 2) around it.).

Or all the remarks about how technology companies dumb down everything. That's Group 1) complaining that Group 2) designs stuff for Group 3).

If you were building your own vs buying one pre-built you would need to do a lot of research first. That would involve reading a lot of blogs and forums and watching a lot of videos. During that time you're bound to pick up a few things not directly related to which parts to buy.

It's amazing, I'm not really in tune with the state of the art with drones (but fly a little Cherokee Arrow, to give some perspective, and have friends that have been RC enthusiasts going back significantly). I looked on Youtube for that DJI Phantom you mentioned, and all I can say is, wow. It is truly amazing how poorly behaved and entitled some of the operators are, especially in comparison to a lot of the RC guys that have proceeded them. I remember that the RC planes only could be flow in restricted areas (unpopulated, usually), and you had to be real careful regardless. I know those guys were just happy the city let them fly their RC planes at their little airstrip near the dump, and tended to be respectful of airspace.

In contrast a lot of these drone owners act like they should be able to fly everywhere at any time, and have their craft be exempt from the same governance that aircraft seem to obey, and RC at least seemed to use to have to adhere to. I guess it's even more crazy to me that the vast majority of Youtube comments seem to like to compare FAA regulations to some sort of facist plot. I really don't understand why drone and RC pilots don't have to obey similar if not the same kind of regulations planes do, as it would probably save us from so many stupid incidents, like the drone recently preventing fire helicopters from handling that highway accident in California. [1] I am also shocked that the UVA student flying that drone over campus [2] only got a $10,000 fine; just watching that video of the flight made me cringe so much, at the amount of dangerous and recklessly negligent behavior. I am a little worried that as RC gets democratized in the form of drones, and grows way beyond the hobbyist following it had in yesteryear that we're going to have to clamp down in a significant way because of the lack of understanding/caring and the abuses that get perpetrated by a contingent of asinine, but hopefully few, reckless drone operators.

[1] - http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/us/california-freeway-fire/ [2] - http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/9/4821094/remote-aircraft-pi...

And those of us that have been flying for years joke about the multicopter gyro stabilized computer guided "pilots" the same way. "Drones" ... they are going to be the death of RC as a hobby.... thanks guys...

I actually started asking around locally about getting started with RC planes because I think in a few years I won't be able to.

>400m

400 feet!

Good catch. Edited.

Given that aircraft fly faster (in the case of large aircraft, a lot faster) than these drones, the article's choice of words that makes it sound like the drones "buzz" aircraft seems pretty misleading. It's the aircraft that fly into the drones, not the other way around.

The real issue isn't what the drones do, it's that they're around at all, because the speeds and sizes involved makes it very difficult to see and avoid them whatever they do. In that sense, they're not that different from birds.

There sure are a lot more birds than drones, but on the other hand I'm not sure what the relative effect on a small aircraft from the impact of a (relatively soft) bird versus a (hard) drone is.

Birds aren't soft at those speeds. Ultimately for both it boils down to weight (or mass if you'd prefer). In both cases the larger heavier object (aircraft) will move the smaller lighter one (birds, drones) out of its path. But damage may be done along the way.

It is possible that the components could damage the inside of a jet engine, but bird bits (inc. bone) don't exactly do jet engines any favours so...

Drones might have actual metal components as well as LiPo batteries, though ...

And a canada goose will cause a contained failure of a CFM56 turboprop the likes of which (or equivalents) equip most B737s and A320s. The miracle on the Hudson was an A320 hitting a flock of geese on take off.

The good news is that for most passenger planes, a drone ingest would be unlikely to do more than take out an engine or smash the cockpit windows. Both severe issues but issues which an airliner can be expected to survive.

That said, a CFM56 engine costs somewhere around 5-10m dollars. So how do you find the drone's owner to bill them for it?

ITYM turbofan.

Indeed, was a brain fart.

Birds are very different from drones in the sense that birds often practice active collision avoidance, at least in the case of encounters with a small aircraft. I have often seen birds take evasive maneuvers when a collision is imminent, much more quickly than I could have as the pilot of the aircraft. Drones at this point have no sense of self preservation when faced with a collision with an aircraft and are therefore in my opinion much more dangerous.

At the Hayward shoreline a few weeks back, a guy was using a drone. I ignored him until he buzzed the area where Snowy Plovers (an Endangered Species) hang out. Then I went over to talk to him.

He was very contrite. Apparently his model has a special light that is supposed to light up in a "no fly zone." I don't know what that means, but he was in a Wildlife Refuge, directly under the flightpath for Oakland International (exactly 5 miles from the landing strip) and less than 2 miles from Hayward airport [1].

Maybe the FAA needs to publish maps for drone guys to show them where it is legal. Or maybe someone should start a Wiki showing legal and interesting place to use drones as a way of diverting drone users away from silly places while raising awareness of where not to go.

[1] 37.645292 -122.155191

I only fly in Canada (planes mostly, sometimes drones) but the easiest way to know the rules is to use a VNC (1) (VFR map in the US (2)) to determine the airspace above / around you, lookup NOTAMS to find any exceptions and combine that with some common sense / curtesy.

So really, the map already exists, but most people who are just getting into drones likely do not know it exists.

(1) http://www.navcanada.ca/EN/products-and-services/Pages/aeron...

(2) http://vfrmap.com/

They don't advertise it as complete, but the source data for this map is managed on github:

https://www.mapbox.com/drone/no-fly/

Cool. That map treats airports as points rather than areas, so the location in question is marked as clear on that map, but is no-fly in real life.

Strangely, it only marks major airports. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the no-fly rules are for all airports.

Looking closer at the github repository, it isn't very active. It's missing the regional airport near here which should have restrictions.

If you zoom in, the airports do get a 5 mile radius which, inferring from linked map in the sibling to my above comment, is not really very accurate (but does capture much of the zone).

Going off of my previous comment, the person you spoke to was probably flying a DJI Phantom[1].

DJI, to their credit, have been trying to integrate some form of safety into their products.

One of these such features are the 'FlySafe', which does exactly what you describe; it lights up a GPS light and/or will prevent the multicopter from even taking off if it's in a dangerous area.

[1] http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc

Intersting that the page you linked is just plain wrong in the first graphic. It shows a 1.5 mile restriction around the airport instead of the correct 5 miles [1].

[1] http://knowbeforeyoufly.org/for-recreational-users/ "Contact the airport or control tower before flying within five miles of an airport."

Not saying that I endorse it, I'm just throwing it out there as what DJI, the manufacturer, considers and uses for their hardware.

Yep. It's a good idea in principle. The FAA really should manage the db and have an API.

Prior HN discussions: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/dangerous-drones-dai...

I think it's good that the FAA is documenting close calls with drones, however the press is a little overblown. This long time pilot views drones less of threat then geese or other large birds. That may change if drones get bigger and heavier, but all things point to drones getting smaller.

A pilot's view on drones: https://jethead.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/airliners-vs-drones...

That's the view of an airliner captain. There are lots of us out there flying planes whose gross weight is well under 3,000 lbs, with a windshield that's made of plastic one eighth of an inch thick.

You're not necessarily wrong - I suppose it depends on how you define "overblown." Personally I have no desire to fly into a 12 lb drone at 130 miles per hour when the only thing protecting me is a thin piece of plastic. Or to have my prop destroy said drone while spinning at 2,400 RPM (which will require an engine tear-down, or possibly a 5-figure engine replacement). Or have one hit my horizontal stabilizer.

All of these may lead to a crash, which can lead to 1-4 deaths. Which may be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it feels significant to me.

The point made by the airline captain, that birds outnumber drones by a vast number, applies no matter what aircraft you fly, though. Unless you're certain that your canopy will survive a birdstrike fine, it seems that the marginal risk increase is minimal.

If drones acted like birds and actively got the hell away from the big, loud, flying thing approaching them then I would agree with your assessment.

And it's not my position that this is anything other than a marginal increase in risk; my position is simply that the risks associated with drone strikes can be quite significant.

You might know more as a pilot but I was under the impression that birds don't get out of the way of big loud flying things. I found a source about birds not getting out of the way for cars once the cars are beyond a certain speed, but I couldn't find anything for airplanes.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1801/2014...

> If drones acted like birds and actively got the hell away from the big, loud, flying thing approaching them then I would agree with your assessment.

As you yourself said you're flying ground relative speed of 130 MpH, there's no way in heck a bird can get out the way. They won't even see you until you're right on top of them approaching at that speed.

It is extremely wishful thinking to believe that bird strikes don't have more often because birds avoid them.

This is simply not true in my experience. I have personally seen birds perform significant aerial maneuvers to avoid collision with my aircraft, going very close to 130MPH. By the time I see the bird it is often in a very steep dive, the bird saw my plane long before I saw the bird.

Once, while flying a glider, I shared the top of a thermal at 5,000 ft. with hundreds of swallows, darting all around me. I guess they were there to feed on the insects carried up there by the thermal, while I was up there because I needed the altitude to get home. Admittedly, I was only flying at 55 mph., and not making much noise.

I have also had a model airplane pull up in front of me, and that scared the crap out of me for a second, until I realized it wasn't the real thing - though, on reflection, it might have done serious damage if it hit the canopy or the horizontal stabilizer.

I'm surprised, not that they do something to avoid airplanes, but that it makes the situation better. Maybe birds are better at this than animals on roads, who often make the situation worse with their actions?

I think birds might just be better adapted to making highspeed course corrections than deer, squirrels, etc. Plus, they have the advantage of another dimension (and gravity) to use for getting out of the way.

Consider also that if a deer is spooked and freezes on the highway, you hit it. If a bird is spooked and freezes in mid-air, it falls to the ground.

I totally agree. It seems birds are not dumb enough to do this: https://youtu.be/F4ml61jI5ow?t=207 (at 3:42)

SpacemanSpiff is correct. This happens all the time. Wishful thinking or not.

I've personally seen it with ducks (6,500' on my first cross-country solo), hawks, vultures (or buzzards - can't tell the difference), seagulls, and those swarms of birds that like to fly close to the ground around airports.

The birds that are a greater hazard to small piston-powered planes are those that curl up into a ball when they sense a predator as they can drop right into you.

Still, many things that are both significant and marginal are not worth making a big deal out of.

My biggest question is what is a 'close call'? Is it something that a layperson would also agree is a close call? Some of the examples in the article don't sound too scary.

"Whizzed underneath aircraft as it approached a runway" leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Other examples in the article do sound more scary, but is that just cherry picking or typical?

Technically, the FAA defines a "near mid air collision" as an incident where there was a possibility of collisions with a proximity of less then 500 feet.

Keep in mind that's an airbus A380 is approx. 240 ft. long, 260 ft. wide and 80 ft. tall.

In that context, 500 ft. is actually quite close.

Though in the context of drones being limited to 400 feet of altitude, the whole flight could be considered a near miss with the ground...

The way some people fly, it is.

I don't see signs of drones getting smaller. It seems to me they will only get bigger and heavier especially if companies like Amazon are going to be using them to deliver products.

I'm an anecdata point for the "my drones are getting smaller" side here: My first couple of quadcopters were 10 and 12 inch prop sized, weighing in around 2 or 3 pounds - all me recent ones are _much_ smaller - 6 and 5 inch props with my "light" one being just under 200g (under half a pound) and the other three in the 1 to 1.5 pound range (depending on battery size and how much gear it's got on board - gps/video adds extra weight)

Tiny drones are much more common now as well - I've got a drawer full of Cheerson CX10s which weigh all of 30g or so (about an ounce). I strongly suspect the bulk of the "700,000 drones sold" are made up of devices closer to my CX10s than they are to "washing machine sized" ones capable of getting to 10,000 feet.

In reality they will most likely go down both paths. Amazon and others looking to ship goods via drones will want something bigger, while sports enthusiasts will wants something smaller.

So what happens when someone(s) decide to automate a drone protest over a runway. Just set it and forget it. They fly till they drop and block airspace by just flying 100 ft above a runway and fly back and forth. They would be able to shut down an airport. That's what.

Kinda like these folks who shit down a river. But there's no one to arrest.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/08/greenpe...

Thats a pretty expensive way to protest.

Not really. Drones will only get cheaper. Oh, and terrorists have virtually unlimited money. DIY drone kits with oss nav software. Cheap, untraceable, highly disruptive.

While drones colliding with aircraft is not a good thing, aren't most aircraft rated for bird strikes? It seems like most hobby level drones are approximately the same size and weight.

Birds are made of something that a blender with a 100W motor (or less) can turn into mash in seconds. Drones are not.

This is obviously one hell of a blender, but none of my quadcopters are anything like as tough as an iPhone:

http://www.willitblend.com/videos/iphone-5s

Birds don't carry bombs (LiPo battery) with them. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQheOtdCTjs

"Bombs" is highly melodramatic. And at the speed that burned, it would be tens of miles behind an aircraft after the collision, and that's assuming that the impact didn't break up and spread the materials so thin that they weren't an effective hazard.

LiPos don't explode. They must be seriously mishandled for some time to even become relatively unsafe.

Yes, the chemical reactions are pretty vigorous, but it takes quite a lot of special cases to get it to burn.

It's not really an explosion.

The volatility just means the wreckage of the drone burns for a few seconds. That's not nearly as big a problem as the impact itself.

This and the drone operators that like to fly at Cars&Coffee events.

Yes, it's a great idea to fly a drone around lots of expensive cars and people without insurance, skill or experience.

/sarcasm

Schumer pledged to introduce legislation requiring manufacturers to install technology on all drones to prevent them from flying above 500 feet, near airports or in sensitive airspace. Such technology, known as geo- fencing, relies on satellite navigation to pinpoint a drone’s location

Completely unrealistic. Such measures would be easily defeated and many hobbyist drone-builders would just omit them in the first place.

> Such measures would be easily defeated

But may protect against casual negligence.

DJI, the company that makes a number of consumer-ready 'drones', already integrates this feature.

http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc

> Aviation-safety experts say that even tiny drones could trigger a disaster by crashing into a propeller or windshield, or getting sucked into a jet engine.

Does it mean that birds could also cause a similar disaster?

Birds caused this: http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2009/plane_crash_red...

..and not a single crash

does there need to be one in order for something to change?

I just want to remind you FAA (and military) has a lot of UFO reports as well, not a single confirmed crash tho.

Interesting that a story disparaging of drones is being written in a newspaper owned by the biggest commercial proponent of the technology. What am I missing?

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