Close call: A passenger plane had a near miss with a drone as it landed at Heathrow on July 22, in the first such incident recorded at Britain’s biggest airport. Above, planes queue to take off at the airport
He reported the sighting and an inquiry was launched by the UK Airprox Board, which investigates all reported near-misses. Investigators, however, were unable to identify it.
It comes amid concern over the threat to aircraft from domestic drones flown by amateurs.
In May the pilot of a 74-seat ATR 72 reported a quadcopter drone within 80ft of his aircraft at about 1,500ft as he was approaching Southend Airport.
The official report into the incident at Heathrow is due to be published on Friday, but Ukab has initially recorded the incident rating as A – the highest of its five categories – in which serious risk of collision has existed.
Airport: The official report into the incident at London Heathrow (pictured) is due to be published on Friday, but the UK Airprox Board has initially recorded the incident rating as A – the highest of its five categories
The revelation comes as it was revealed there was concern over domestic drones flown by amateurs threatening aircraft - especially as they are given as Christmas presents.
Drones cost from just £35 to £3,350 - and sales have jumped from the normal level of around 2,000 a month thanks to extra demand ahead of December 25, according to The Sunday Times.
Electronics retailer Maplin said drones were one of its biggest current sellers, while hundreds of different drones made by at least 15 manufacturers can be purchased from Amazon.
Last month, a conference on unmanned aerial systems in London heard that police were worried about injuries and other problems on Boxing Day when amateur ‘pilots’ try out their new drones.
Drones (file pictured) cost from £35 to £3,350 - and sales have jumped from the normal level of around 2,000 a month thanks to extra pre-Christmas demand. It is unknown what type of drone was involved in the incident
The Airbus A320 is commonly used by European airlines. Earlier this year airline pilots' association Balpa demanded better protection for the public against the risks of drones.
It wants drones, officially known as Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (Rpas), which share airspace with passenger and freight airliners, to meet the same safety standards as piloted aircraft.
It includes only being flown by operators with pilot-equivalent training.
Balpa general secretary Jim McAuslan said: ‘The UK should become a "safe drone zone" so we can make the most of the major business and leisure opportunities offered by remotely piloted aircraft, while protecting passengers, pilots and residents.
‘The technology is developing quickly and we could see remote aircraft the same size as a Boeing 737 being operated commercially in our skies within ten years.’
Research carried out by intelligence experts for the University of Birmingham Policy Commission Report published in October warned of the misuse of drones.
The commission called for ‘urgent’ measures to safeguard British airspace to cope with civil and commercial use, which is expected to be more widespread by 2035.
The report said the ‘hazards presented by inadvertent or accidental misuse of Rpas, or the consequences of their malfunctioning are becoming better understood’.
It added that small commercial aircraft, including for taking photographs, are already ‘clearly being flown’ and often in breach of the rules, the commission found.
Comments
Seth maybe I expressed myself poorly.
My intention was to say 1 mile out from the end of any given runway, not at the end of any given runway.
And I know there are practical limitations to implementing this,
But even if you simply said always below 400 feet and 2 miles from any given airport it would be a whole lot better, more realistic and likely to be followed than the 5 miles it is now.
The number of airports where a precision ILS approach is much smaller than the number of airports and descending to below 400' AGL closer than a mile from any non-ILS airport is certainly not a normal procedure.
Even so give those airports a bigger circle, just like the FAA does now, gosh you could even use the current FAA standards as shown on the charts just in reverse for us.
And maybe even then below 100 feet within that circle.
Because of airport overlap, the 5 mile rule actually prohibits flying at a lot of currently in existance RC AMA approved flying fields as it is now.
And this sort of blanket Draconian overreach isn't helping anyone.
You can toady to the FAA if you want, but the fact is that they are making general rules that the vast unwashed public has no intention of following and they are making a giant boondoggle for us all.
Good rules would work bad rules will be ignored to everyone's deficit.
I think it is important to keep manned and unmanned traffic well away from each other too, but the FAAs approach is to diminish legal non-manned traffic to the point of non-existance.
I think your'e permit actually illustrates this.
Being allowed to fly only over open water and in support of the most important economic asset to the United States certainly minimizes any safety threat and represents about 1/1000 of what we need UAVs to do.
It also point out the FAAs current primary operating maxim - money talks, not your's, Big Oils.
I know I seem like a rabid dog when it comes to the FAA, but the FAA is very much behaving like a bully when it comes to hobbyist use and small scale commercial use and I hate bullies.
Well you answered your own question. You shouldn't be below 400 feet 5 miles out and you shouldn't be below 400 feet 3 miles out. Of course you might drop a bit below 400, but that doesn't mean there's a "drone" sitting right there at 395 feet in your path.
Any real risk analysis needs to take traffic type and volume into consideration. All airports aren't physically the same and certainly O'Hare is completely different than a smaller towered airport (your example) or a no tower one. Treating all airports the same is what I have a problem with as the vast majority are untowered and have very low traffic volume. Just because a collision can be imagined doesn't mean that it is at all likely to happen.
All of this assumes a drone operator that wants to be conscientious and keeps aware of manned craft. If not, anything the FAA comes up with, reasonable or not, won't matter.
John,
Look at this approach plate KSCK and tell me what altitude I should be at just past the VOR which is 4 NM out? The answer is on a real or practice approach I have to cross the VOR at or above 1300 and right after that I'm dumping altitude as fast as I can to get to minimums and stabilize at 460 MSL or close to 400 AGL when you consider the ground elevation and that an altimeter has about 70' of allowable error too. I bet that I'm greater than 3NM out when I get to minimums and you're flying your drone about 400 ft. And I don't have a lot of recovery time when it smashes through the windshield at 120 mph.
So how did they teach non-precision approaches when you got your instrument rating?
At small (no tower) airports the vast majority of flights are coming in VFR and they dump altitude faster than a 3 degree slope. Could someone be a mile out and under 400 feet doing a practice approach? Yes, but that is not common. Should they be under 400 feet 5 miles out? I've never met a flight instructor who thought that was a good idea. How about 2 miles out? Generally you hold altitude as long as possible for your own safety as well as those who may be on the ground. Not to mention the birds which are more common lower to the ground.
Again the point here is 5 miles is way too much. Especially for small airports and helipads.
I agree with Dean. But I fear it is too little and too late. Some day soon there will one that makes an encounter that we all fear, God forbid if that day ever comes...
John, a lot of these answers are assuming a precision approach like and ILS. Do a VOR or ADF approach and you get down to minimum altitude a lot farther out. Spent a lot of time flying at 200 agl doing practice non-precision approaches. The first time I did one without a hood you figure out you're pretty darn low for over a mile away from the airport. The landing technique there is totally different than the glideslope on an ILS. Now GPS approaches means that we're losing more non-precision approaches but they're still out there in large numbers.
"Also the 5 mile circular thing around airports is ludicrous and unrelated to actual flight paths.
Planes don't descend (or ascend) below 500 feet in anything like that space, only at the ends of the runway and certainly within a mile of the airport."
This is false. 3 degrees is the standard ILS, VASI, PAPI, PVASI, whatever glidepath. Who's flying an ILS to a small airport during broad daylight in a Cessna 172 or a Bell Jetranger? Anyone doing instrument training. Who bothers to find out if the nearest airport has an ILS or any other types of approaches and where the procedure turns are? Almost nobody. The FAA knows this.
I was asked by the BBC to be interviewed on this incident and voice my opinions but it was my Fathers 80th birthday so couldn`t make the meeting with them before the 6pm bulletin, but I did speak to them on the phone and gave them a few suggestions on how I thought incidents like this could be prevented, such as only selling the parts and not complete units? that may mean that if they have the intelligence to build one they may have the intelligence not to fly within international airports.. But whatever is done its a little too late as there are thousands of units out there and thousands of idiots to match. Technology has replaced the skill to fly and the respect for safety that comes with it. Even the BNUC`s exam that grants UK commercial flyers their licence does not require you to fly manually or even in Atti mode, just a load of switch flicking and then you are granted a licence and it has become apparent on a great number of jobs that I have been on... " How comes you are not having any problems with interference? the last guys said they couldn`t fly because of it and nearly crashed.." In other words they couldn`t fly without GPS which is just asking for trouble especially in built up areas where there are more potential dangers and generally less GPS reception.
Just saying this is boring or impossible is not calming things down.
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