Civilian UAVs are used increasingly frequently for photo and video shooting, cargo delivery, search-and-rescue operations, and other purposes. In the interests of safety\u00a0\u2014 of both the drones and their surroundings \u2014 some countries have already introduced rules and restrictions on their use. Alas, not all UAV owners know or follow them. And, like any electronic devices, drones can sometimes get out of hand. What are the potential consequences? Here are some examples.<\/p>\n
In January 2015, a drone crashed right on the lawn in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. An inebriated government officer had flown the drone from an apartment<\/a> located near the official residence of the U.S. president, and lost control of it. According to the New York Times, he texted his friends, worried that the drone had gone down on the White House grounds, and then \u2026 went to sleep. Hearing news of a White House incident the following morning, the troublemaker owned up.<\/em><\/p>\n He was lucky: The investigation showed that before the crash, the drone was in uncontrolled flight, so the prosecutor\u2019s office did not bring charges against the pilot.<\/a> However, the incident highlighted an issue of White House security. The small drone breezed past<\/a> radars designed to detect traditional aircraft and missiles\u00a0\u2014 and its intentions could easily have been less innocent.<\/p>\n Shortly after the incident, the drone manufacturer released a firmware update for the model<\/a> to prevent it from flying within a 25\u00a0km radius (about 15.5 miles) of the White House. The copters also become inoperable in the vicinity of airports, power plants, and other critical facilities. But not all drones have those built-in safeguards.<\/p>\n In December 2018, drones paralyzed London\u2019s Gatwick Airport<\/a>. Planes were grounded for more than a day because of reports of drones over the airfield, which mysteriously appeared whenever the airport tried to reopen. The incident affected 140,000 passengers. About a thousand flights had to be canceled.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the culprits were never found<\/a>, leading to speculation that they didn\u2019t even exist. The reports came exclusively from eyewitnesses; Gatwick\u2019s security systems, as in the White House case, detected nothing. Moreover, to investigate the incident, the police deployed their own drones<\/a>, which could have provoked more reported sightings.<\/p>\n In another accident that happened in 2017 in the Canadian province of Quebec, no eyewitnesses were present to prevent a drone collision. Coming in to land, a light-engine aircraft smashed into a UAV<\/a> at an altitude of 450 meters (about 1,500 feet)\u00a0\u2014 five times as high as copters are permitted. Fortunately, the aircraft with eight people on board suffered only minor damage and landed safely.<\/p>\n The consequences could have been far more serious. As researchers from the University of Dayton demonstrated last year, even a light drone can cause significant damage<\/a> to a plane.<\/p>\nAirport chaos<\/h3>\n
Crash in the sky<\/h3>\n