Accelerators
Big Data
Greentech
Consumer
Design
Development
eCommerce
Education
Entrepreneurship
FinTech
Gaming
Hardware
Health
Industry
Innovation
Internet
IoT
IT
Lists
Marketing
Media
Mobile
News
Policy
Robotics
Science
Security
Social Media
Telecom
Venture Capital
Wearables
Photo Credit: CC-By-Zeynel Cebeci
This past week the UK organization responsible for handling complaints by pilots and air traffic controllers regarding close encounters and near collisions, released a report about a near miss with a kamikaze Quadcopter back in May
Avi SchneiderOct 28, 2014
This past week the UK organization responsible for handling complaints by pilots and air traffic controllers regarding close encounters and near collisions, released a report about a near miss with a kamikaze qnsuadcopter back in May.
According a filed report with the UK Airprox Board, on May 30 an AT72-500 aircraft with a seating capacity of 74 passengers came dangerously close to being intercepted by a hobby drone that appeared to be steering itself onto a collision course with the aircraft.
The event took place at 1500 ft. above Southend Airport and was reported by the pilot who saw the drone apparently adjust course from 100 meters away and come to within 25 meters of the aircraft’s right wing tip. The co-pilot, who saw the situation develop, was of the belief that the quadcopter was looking to intentionally collide with the aircraft given its flight behavior and assessed the risk of collision at the time as being “High.”
Photo Credit; Screenshot, UK Airprox Board
Perhaps most disturbing about the event is the fact that authorities have absolutely no idea who was operating the quadcopter. Add to that the fact that this wouldn’t be the first time a Quadcopter ventured into what was believed to be a secure area and nearly gave security personnel a heart attack, and the civilized world has itself a big little problem.
A little over a month ago in September, the German Pirate party (yes, that’s their actual name) pulled a stunt at an event in Dresden where they flew a small drone to within 2 meters of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The group claimed they wanted to show Merkel what it was like to be spied upon by a drone. Ironically, they may have also showed groups that require being spied upon, like ISIS or Hamas, how easy it is to fly a UAV next to a public official or other sensitive targets, like an airport.
The group calling themselves the Islamic State has proven rather adept at recruiting suicide Jihadist through social media, with two back to back attacks being carried out by two separate and recent converts to Islam against Canadian servicemen, and a third attack perpetrated by a thug with a similar profile against police officers in New York.
The weapons of choice of these three men were a car, gun and hatchet, respectively. But a slightly more adept Jihadist could easily use a drone as a delivery vehicle for a homemade bomb similar to what the Boston Marathon bombers used back in 2013. And, as we just saw, getting to within striking distance of a commercial aircraft at some airports, at least, is apparently not all that difficult.
Which is what makes this latest incident over Southend so disturbing. Back in June, UK Prime Minister David Cameron made it clear that ISIS was planning to carry out terror plots on British soil and some 65 people had already been arrested for connections to Syria related terror activities during the 18 months prior, according to a spokesperson for the government. How many more have eluded scrutiny and subsequent capture?
Back in the days following September 11th, disturbing information emerged as to how the hijackers had apparently only expressed interest in flying and steering commercial airliners but not in landing them. Red flags should have gone up but they didn’t. Corrections were made since then to tighten the awareness gap amongst FAA brass.
What I want to know is who’s making the rounds to enhance the terror awareness of the staff at Toys R’ Us and Hamleys?
