I’ve been warning for some time (as far back as 2014) that terrorists might seek to use small unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, to collide with aircraft and cause a crash. Although several such collisions have been reported, so far there’s been no evidence of terrorist involvement – but then, there hasn’t been any evidence that they weren’t involved, either. It’s very much a gray area at the moment.
Now comes news out of Chicago of another drone-vs.-aircraft collision.
US authorities have disclosed that an Envoy Air Embraer 175 appeared to collide with an unmanned aerial vehicle while departing from Chicago O’Hare.
The US FAA states, in a preliminary notification, that the aircraft “struck a UAS” – an unmanned aircraft system – during a climbing left turn, as it took off from runway 09C for Detroit on 22 August.
Air-ground communications show the crew of a JetBlue Embraer 190, departing the same runway for Boston about 1min before the Envoy service, notified Chicago tower controllers of a “drone” in the area.
. . .
The [Envoy] aircraft levelled at about 6,000ft and entered an orbit before returning to O’Hare.
According to the preliminary FAA notification the jet (N242NN), operating on behalf of American Airlines, sustained only minor damage, and none of the occupants was injured.
There’s more at the link.
I suppose it’s possible people could be stupid enough to think it funny to fly a drone into the path of an airliner, utterly daft though that seems . . . but I can’t help feeling that this remains a potentially serious danger if terrorists decide to employ it as a regular tactic. A small, simple drone probably won’t bring down an aircraft (although it’s enough, as demonstrated above, to force the pilots to land again rather than proceed to their destination, causing at least economic disruption and damage). However, what if someone were to load a pound or two of home-made explosive (PETN, already widely used by terrorists, or something similar) aboard the drone? That would make it a far more dangerous and potentially lethal weapon. A sudden wave of half-a-dozen such attacks at or near major airports would probably shut down US air transport altogether while the authorities tried to figure out who was behind it, and tried to deal with them. The economic damage and disruption would be enormous.
I remain very concerned about this. With the recent terrorist triumph in Afghanistan, I think the risk of such attacks has just become more serious.
Peter
Sadly, not a new thing. After 9-11, a friend and I (both prior service) brainstormed while driving past O'Hare Airport how terrorists might bring down airliners–and our first thought was radio-controlled toy airplanes with small explosives aboard–fly a few of those into the jet intake of a plane climbing out and there'd be mass death. I'm very surprised it hasn't happened–yet.
Octo is correct… dammit…
That'll be the next thing; outlawing drones "in the name of public safety." Of course, it won't be imported "culture enrichers" who are demonized here, but homegrown "right-Wing extremists."
Pete nailed it.
What? Really? You know for a fact we only imported how many thousand fighting age ROP 'refugees' over the past week…and just in time for them to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 9/11? They're gonna celebrate peacefully with us, right?
Right???!!!
I'm sorry, but this is a bit overblown.
Yes, you theoretically could attach a device to a commercial UAV.
But it's still a non trivial task to actually do what you and some commenters have suggested. It's like hitting a bullet with a much slower bullet.
These things are not magic, they are just a piece of man made technology.
The old school RC planes take a lot of time and effort to get the skills to actually fly without immediately crashing let alone impacting a relatively small portion of a fast moving target.
As for the newer generation of easier to operate remotely piloted vehicles (quadcopters and the like) commonly called "drones".
The small, commonly available, ones are very limited by battery life.
The average flight time is between 15-25 minutes in their stock configuration.
Any high winds or excess weight and/or drag dramatically reduces that time.
From a half, up to a third of the time, lost due those issues.
There's plenty of easier and less complicated ways of disrupting the system.
Remember, they don't have to actually accomplish anything. Just an attempt is enough for the security bureaucracy to accomplish the goal for them. For example, TSA is still having people remove their shoes for screening.
The technology already exists to control a swarm of drones; it's been used for nighttime light displays controlling up to 3,000 drones at once. All you'd need to do is transfer that tech to bigger, more powerful machines. Someone wrote a short story about it 4-5 years ago, too, where 6-8 human-controlled machines carry about a pound of weight were flown into the flightpath of an aircraft carrying a POTUS candidate. Throw a dumbbell into a jet turbine and see how well it runs. Have a bunch of these things pop up on the takeoff path of any major airport, and do it to half a dozen simultaneously. That'll screw up anybody's day.
And now all these MANPADS that just got turned over to our buddies overseas? 4-man teams in white box trucks, parked on the freeway near the flightpath of 4-6 airports. 1 driver, one security guy, and two shooters.
there was a documented case in the last week or so where a cessna hit a police drone on approach.
@Unknown: https://jalopnik.com/cops-crashed-a-drone-into-a-plane-that-was-just-trying-1847551799