All the Canadian authorities are looking into the midair collision of a flight school Cessna 172 and fair-sized drone that could have ended a lot worse than it did. The fact that it happened within a mile of an airport and that the drone operator was a local police department has added some extra attention to the mishap. The Canadian Flyers 172 was substantially damaged in the collision, with major sheet metal damage and an engine teardown mandated because the lower arc of the prop went through the drone. Had it been a few feet higher, the story may have been a lot different but the instructor on board, who assumed the 172 had hit a bird, made a routine landing at Buttonville Airport.
This particular drone strike occurred near an airport in Canada, while on final. I’m really happy that there were no injuries to the student pilot or instructor from this event. It’s very interesting that the CFI (and evidently mechanics?) didn’t connect this accident with a drone, but instead thought the cause was the impact of a bird strike. I wonder how many other incidents that have a root cause of “bird strike” were actually caused by a drone? Clearly, the risk of a drone strikes to small aircraft is real, though it’s likely we’ll hear nay sayers label this as “just an isolated, rare event”. Kudos for the police department that sent a detective to the airport to inform them of the real cause of the accident. Absent a software cage for the remotely piloted aircraft, it’s easy to see how it could wander 100’ above the 400’ cap. Failure to comply with regulatory pre-notification requirements - that’s another discussion. Do active law enforcement actions allow ‘bending’ or breaking airspace restrictions and other aviation rules? For drone operations, is the 400’ cap determined as feet above the GROUND, or feet above the nearest obstacle within some defined distance?? Is the mandatory ATC coordination distance measured from the nearest exterior boundary of an airport, the runway, the traffic control tower, or the lat/long of the center of the airport? I don’t think I’ve ever seen mention of any clearly defined point, in the US at least, to determine when various maximum altitudes or distances from airports kick in for drone operations, or where exactly coordination with airport management or ATC is required.
I don’t know Canadian drone regulations but in the USA, drones must stay 5 miles away from airports unless they contact ATC or the airport operator before and after a flight. Flying one in the final approach path to an airport is an incredibly dumb thing to do. I’m guessing that the police operator didn’t have a clue what they were doing and should be removed from this kind of duty. GA aircraft can’t see these things in flight because they’re too small, moving quickly relative to the aircraft and may be in a blind spot. Mixing unmanned aircraft with manned aircraft in the same airspace is bound to result in accidents like these until drones are equipped with better “sense and avoid” technology.
Given that there are 25 million plus general aviation flight hours per year in the US alone and this is the first time I’ve heard about a drone actually hitting a GA aircraft in the world, let alone the states, other than maybe that military helicopter, I’d say this is about as rare as it gets. Drones have been big business for the last five years or so, so one drone strike that caused no injury in 125 million flight hours is pretty rare to me. If you fly 100 hours per year then you are more likely to get hit by lightning in that year than hit a drone, and with much worse consequences.
Police love these things. They also think that they can fly them anywhere because they can come up with so many “reasons” why police business needed to.
Very happy that no one died in this public safety drone flight.
To me, the best thing about this, other than the safe outcome, is that the drone was being operated by an “official” person and not some thrill seeking amateur. That’s because it points out that EVERYONE, civilian or government operator, needs to follow proper procedure. Even if the police had justification for operating where they were, they still need to advise ATC officials so they can warn inbound aircraft of the situation. If the police were unaware of the need to do so, or just thought their needs overruled the proper procedures, then maybe their drone “pilot” needs some better training. They can block off the streets to keep a crime scene isolated, but they need to look up and see what is overhead.
Glad to hear of no injuries or fatalities. Near-misses are not reported. I was flying at 1500 agl two miles from the airport and I could swear something whizzed by within 50 feet to my starboard side (pretty sure it wasn’t a bird). But because of speed and the small size of the object, I couldn’t confirm it was a drone. But gets one wondering if how many are actually up there and we’re not aware.
This is all of our fears, fortunately no one was injured or killed but it is coming. The fact is there is big money behind drones, they have bought politicians and if there are more accidents it will be GA that will suffer and have airspace confiscated from us first. Look at what they did to the model airplanes and the restrictions they now have.
>> I wonder how many other incidents that have a root cause of “bird strike” were actually caused by a drone?
As an A&P mechanic who has participated in the fallout and repairs from more than a few true bird strikes, I think it’s pretty easy to tell the difference. Bird strikes involve blood and guts and the distinct smell of dead things. Drone strikes do not.
I got the impression that the CFI initially assumed that it was a bird strike, but may have thought otherwise after he saw the extent of the damage. Note that after exiting the aircraft, both the instructor and the student “…were shocked to see a major dent on the left underside of the engine cowling.”
The main reason police agencies fly drones is for real time surveillance. To do this properly requires a pilot who is usually focused upon a screen or First Person View (FPV) hood, and a spotter who is scanning the airspace for conflicting traffic. Clearly a spotter was either not used in this case, or the spotter was not doing his/her job. Considering the other deficiencies in this particular police operation, it all adds up to reckless operation and/or gross incompetence. I don’t know how drone operations are regulated in Canada, but to operate one commercially in the U.S. requires a special license.
I would expect government drone pilots to have a credential at least equal to a PPL and have recurrent instruction on drone aviation rules. Certainly US military drone pilots do. I understand that these smaller surveillance drones are very stable in flight and not much skill needed to actually “fly” one.
For safety all drones should be geofenced, with secure software, and broadcasting ADS-B out. With the unit number registered to the owner/operator just like for GA aircraft.
Maybe treat all drones over a certain weight/purpose as “remotely piloted aircraft”. Maybe under 2.5 Kg including batteries and camera limited to 200 ft and 1 mile from operator (hobby toys) all others requiring adequate training to actually be more than toys.
My personal opinion is that all privately operated drones should be limited to very light weights and set up with “electronic tethers” that prevent them from exiting the operator’s clear direct visual range laterally NOT utilizing onboard camera telemetry(a few hundred feet) and vertically limited to within 200’ of the operator’s position.
A few weeks ago I was climbing through 1700’AGL about 5 miles South of KTTD at about 160 mph and had a near miss (less than 100’) with a turkey-sized drone. Some ignorant jerk standing safely on the ground nearly killed me.
Like Hartsoc I also had a similar incident, except I was on climb out from Oshawa Airport, which coincidently happens to be just 15 mikes away from Buttonville the SUBJECT AIRPORT in this story!!! I was doing 130 kts in my Beech Duke climbing off runway 12 as I turned crosswind (500 ft AGL) I spotted two drones which appeared to be flying in tight formation (a few feet apart) slightly above and to my left. I was about to turn right into them. I broke off the turn and pushed the nose over hard - I missed by less than 100 feet (close enough that I can tell you one was black and one was grey, they were both quad-copters) as they went over my side of the airplane.
I was chilled to read this article as Buttonville Airport is close neighbour to my airport, and I can tell you I still have chilling images of what it would have been like having one of those come directly through my windshield.
I reported the incident to ATC immediately at Oshawa (CYOO) but never heard anything about it again, no report was requested, no call from Transport Canada, nada! Now I wonder if my incident might have also involved police drones and whether that’s the reason there was no follow up - no collision, no evidence, so no need to investigate.
How many other close calls like this have happened without any formal reporting? I have a feeling it isn’t isolated. It would be an interesting survey for AVWEB. I don’t believe in the big sky philosophy
Thinking back over the past several years, my impression is that drone sightings around our uncontrolled field have diminished. The vast majority of such sightings, BTW, have always been reported by ground based observers at and near the airport. Possibly the initial rush to have the latest “new toy” is tapering off, or I suppose it’s even possible the rules are actually trickling down to the general public and being observed.
Fortunately, inexpensive drones, the type most likely to be owned & flown by the rule ignorant, are small and light enough to make the great majority of collisions survivable, if expensive.