Originally published back on July 8th, Kerrville authorities claimed a “private drone” impacted a helicopter which forced an emergency landing and put the helicopter out of commission for the ongoing search and rescue efforts of the Texas hill country flash flooding. No further details were being provided at the time but the actual events were sought out and are now being made public.
An Army National Guard helicopter was struck by a DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise drone being flown by a Texas State Trooper as part of the official search and rescue. The Texas DPS drone was flying an automated mapping mission as part of the disaster effort and had engaged in a RTH (Return To Home). This was NOT a “private drone”. This was NOT a drone violating the TFR. Instead, this was absolutely two aircraft that were part of the official response. There was no damage to the helicopter; it had landed out of an abundance of caution and was able to immediately return to operations. Kerrville authorities have back tracked and posted that a rescue drone “had flown too high and stalled — contrary to earlier reports that it was an unauthorized private drone”.
Exactly. And here was their follow-up weeks later as journalists started to relay more accurate information.
City of Kerrville, Texas - City Hall
DRONE HIT CLARIFICATION
At the July 23 joint hearing of the special state House and Senate committees investigating this month’s deadly floods, testimony clarified that the drone involved in the incident that forced a military helicopter to make an emergency landing July 7 in Kerr County was actually an authorized search and rescue drone. It had flown too high and stalled — contrary to earlier reports that it was an unauthorized private drone.
When I still published articles on my own online-pub, I eventually refused to rely on social media for sourcing because followup is pretty much impossible.
IOW when some clown updates or corrects their mass entertainment platform like Facebook you’ll never find out about it. One would have to scan hundreds of social media pages for newsworthy content or secret changes.
