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Seattle's Komo News does Tame Story about Drone Buzzing Space Needle

Posted by Timothy Clemans on July 25, 2014 at 12:30am

Seattle's Komo News did an excellent piece about a drone buzzing the Space Needle this week. The video is at http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-investigate-drone-strike-on-Space-Needle-268518072.html?tab=video&c=y I was impressed at how tame it came out. The police in particular made it clear that policing drones is not a priority and that the operator had no interest of harm. I'm pleased at how well Seattle police are handling this unlike the NYPD helicopter fiasco. An interesting piece of the story is that the operator is an out of town employee of Amazon.com. 

I was surprised that Komo didn't mention anything about the possibility of the drone hitting tourism helicopters buzzing the needle. Komo's own helicopter crashed this year next to the Space Needle. I wonder if the DJI should be painted yellow with labels saying "Don't fly over 400FT"

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Comments

  • Timothy Clemans July 25, 2014 at 2:41pm

    Well they are "allowed" in the sense that it's very rarely enforced.

  • John July 25, 2014 at 1:56pm
    The 400 foot rule doesn't matter here because your within a mile of an airport and a helipad. There's no rc flying allowed in these areas at all regardless of altitude unless you notify the airport or heliport. An accident is bound to happen and all will be banned with high penalties when it does happen. It will then be a federal homeland security offense.
  • Timothy Clemans July 25, 2014 at 11:23am

    I think the city should make a law restricting drones to under 400ft and enforce it for high profile incidents like this.

  • John July 25, 2014 at 10:03am
    There's also a float plane port on lake union about a mile from there. Again he shouldn't be flying there in the middle of a city with all this air traffic and all the people. There needs to be tough laws and heavy fines for this behavior to protect the diydrone community.
  • T3
    Stephen Zidek July 25, 2014 at 9:37am

    Only now am I bothered by the fact that the space needle's name is misleading: there is no way a traditional multicopter could fly in space.

  • Pedals2Paddles July 25, 2014 at 8:38am

    A nice story to read for once. But notice the URL...  Really?  Drone strike?

    http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-investigate-drone-strike-on-Space-Needle-268518072.html?tab=video&c=y

  • Ron Perry July 25, 2014 at 7:39am
    NBCs Today Show this morning says Police found an Amazon employee in the hotel room it flew back to. If he was on the clock you can be the has a pretty good lawyer! Amazon is pushing the issue, they want to deliver.
  • John July 25, 2014 at 6:54am
    He shouldn't be flying there.... There's a helipad only about 500 feet from the space needle.
  • Martin July 25, 2014 at 6:43am

    That's terrible, he could have been carrying hundreds of pounds of explosives or even taken it down. The people were in mortal danger...........HA

    Can you say over reaction. Even the cop was smiling...But these are way to easy to get and fly for newbie drubes with no sense.

  • Daniel Lukonis July 25, 2014 at 5:49am

    Police need to buy Phantoms and paint them blue and red to chase down the other Phantoms ;-)

This reply was deleted.